None of us had any idea of how successful Downton was going to be. I thought I was signing up for another period drama that had a slightly modern feel. It had a freedom about it because it was coming out of the head of Julian Fellowes. Anything could happen and generally did.

Freedom is just Chaos with better lighting.

That's why I like fast film. It gives you more freedom to light more naturally.

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment but of boredom.

I felt extremely uncomfortable as the focal point in the spotlight. I really like the behind the scenes role because all my freedom is there.

I was interested by the idea that artists working in a totalitarian dictatorship or tsarist autocracy are secretly and slightly shamefully envied by artists who work in freedom. They have the gratification of intense interest: the authorities want to put them in jail while there are younger readers for whom what they write is pure oxygen.

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

Personal identity seems like it's just such an American archetype from Holly Golightly re-inventing herself in 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' to Jay Gatsby in 'The Great Gatsby.' It seems like the sort of archetypal American issue. If you're given the freedom to be anything or be anyone what do you do with it?

Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that.

In France today people no longer eat as much heavy food and fat as they did 15 or 20 years ago. These days French cooking through the influence of 'grande cuisine ' has become a bit lighter. And we are beginning to discover the original flavors of our produce.

Grief is a bad moon a sleeper wave. It's like having an inner combatant a saboteur who at the slightest change in the sunlight or at the first notes of a jingle for a dog food commercial will flick the memory switch bringing tears to your eyes.

When I want comfort food I buy Maltesers. I like all chocolates but especially those. You can eat them and because they're so light you can convince yourself that they are not actually that fattening.

Listen - of course money changes everything but so does sunlight and so does food: These are powerful but neutral energy sources neither inherently good nor evil but shaped only by the way we use them.

The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out of his nose.

Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on its delight is murder and its end is despair.

You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked you didn't crash you didn't throw up you weren't late you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

When you rise in the morning give thanks for the light for your life for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks the fault lies in yourself.

Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.

LOVE: A word properly applied to our delight in particular kinds of food sometimes metaphorically spoken of the favorite objects of all our appetites.

Don't get me wrong I think bikes are terrific. I own several of my own including a trendy mountain style and ride them for pleasure and light exercise.

In Australia they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.