George Blagden

“I hate not working. It's that lack of purpose. It becomes very easy to lie in until midday.”

“To walk into the hall of mirrors of Versailles as Louis XIV and deliver a monologue on your own in an empty hall of mirrors is like no other experience.”

“I got makeup tests and hair tests for 'Versailles,' and the main thing they were obsessed with was that my hands were disgusting. I had three years of Irish dirt under my nails. I had to have manicures and everything.”

“The best characters to play are the ones who have deep internal conflict.”

“When you start working on screen, a lot of the time it can feel like you're just trying to make sure that you're not bad.”

“I did school plays, and then, at the age of 18, I applied to drama school in London, and I got in. I've been very lucky that no one so far has stopped me from being able to live my dream - the industry or my parents.”

“'Empire of the Sun' is one of the films that I often think about. I think it had a profound effect on me when I first watched it as a teenager.”

“I don't know why there is still any barrier between men and women in terms of achievement and success.”

“They have a good ethos at Guildhall in that they basically throw loads of different things at you. Their theory is that after you leave, if you use 10 of those 100 things, that's great. The other 90, you might not agree with or might not work for you as an actor. But if you can find 10 that work for you, then ultimately you leave as a better actor.”

“As anyone who even remotely knows me, I will eat chicken with some chicken, and maybe more chicken. Chicken done any which way, basically.”

“I have such a sweet tooth, which is a nightmare when you're trying to be good.”

“I love 'Into The Woods.' I auditioned for a couple of productions since being in it at school but haven't been successful.”

“Everyone at drama school called me Musical Boy.”

“Sometimes when you're stood in front of 100 people, delivering a speech with rage and lots of emotion, that can be utterly terrifying. I find that very scary.”

“I read pretty much every tweet that's sent to me and often reply.”

“Modern audiences are so intelligent. They work at such a fast pace that if you don't give enough stimulus at a breakneck speed, they will become disinterested.”

“I guess if you have had a good education as opposed to someone who hasn't been to school, you start off on this journey having studied Shakespeare for years and years or studied classics. I suppose why people see this big divide - the boarding school boys getting all the roles - is because they feel like some people have had a head start.”

“Sometimes it's hard, when you start engaging with people on the Internet, to forget that, actually, we really don't know one another... that's something I need to learn a lot more.”

“I went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and that was amazing. I absolutely loved my three years at Guildhall.”

“It's bizarre: sometimes I go through periods where I really want to put a song up online, and sometimes I'm sort of busy with other things... It's very much a hobby, that kind of thing. I sort of post it more for maybe my mom's benefit, and suddenly she says, 'It's got 50,000 views.' And I think maybe I should've put it as private.”