Dan Stevens

“I was a pretty difficult teenager.”

“The female attention I have to struggle hardest with is from my two-year-old daughter.”

“Theatre, when it is at its best, takes a lot of beating - the live experience and the shared collective experience of live storytelling is really special when it is good. Particularly here in New York because the audiences are amazing, very vocal and very engaged, and that makes theatre very exciting.”

“I don't know much about my biological background.”

“But even writing the column for the 'Telegraph,' that idea of working to deadlines, which as an actor that's not something you have to do in the same way. It's excited me into wanting to do a bit more.”

“Every night, half an hour before curtain up, the bells of St. Malachy's, the Actors' Chapel on New York's 49th Street, peal the tune of 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' If you walk the streets of the theatre district before a show and see the vast, enthusiastic lines it sounds like a calling: there is certainly no place like Broadway.”

“Soap opera seems to be a dirty word, but actually they are the most popular shows we have. People want to know what happens next, people hate the villains and love the lovers. It's good, fun TV. But I wouldn't call 'Downton' a soap opera as such.”

“You do feel a certain obligation to shows that raise your profile like 'Downton' has. But there are definitely other exciting opportunities out there.”

“I'm sure I wouldn't have been asked to judge the Man Booker if it weren't for 'Downton.'”

“I haven't done as many films as I would have liked.”

“Oh, it is quite possible that none of us in 'Downton' will ever again get the ratings this has had. But from a career point of view, it has opened so many doors.”

“You can be romantically interested in someone and love them and still, I think, be really interested in things and a certain lifestyle that person might provide.”

“I don't think many people get to play big emotions in life.”

“My dad tells me that he took us to a pantomime when I was very, very small - panto being a sort of English phenomenon. There's traditionally a part of the show where they'll invite kids up on the stage to interact with the show. I was too young to remember this, but my dad says that I was running up onstage before they even asked us.”

“Soap opera seems to be a dirty word, but actually they are the most popular shows we have.”

“At 13, in my first year of Tonbridge, I went up for the part of Macbeth. I was up against the 17- and 18-year-olds, but for some reason I got the part. It made me incredibly unpopular with my peers, but it was the English and drama teachers who stepped in to save me when others wanted me kicked out of the school.”

“I was never very happy at school.”

“I'm shocked at being recognized. You go to places you don't think you would be and still, you are. Taxi drivers often recognise me... but I haven't got a free ride yet.”

“I've never been a fan of directors who clutter a piece with all sorts of crazy preconceptions or weird ideas.”

“I'm lucky to be married to someone who entirely gets what I do. She is totally sympathetic to the actor's life. Her own mother was an actress, so she sort of grew up with it.”