Quotes

I want to be an author.

The whole world of Game of Thrones (2011) was realized with such detail, with directors and writers who really geeked out and really loved all the little bits of it.

The interesting thing is, when you play a real-life character or someone based in a book, you always come up against people's preconceptions of what they have in their heads.

If I'm honest, the reason I got into acting is not the reason I'm still doing it, and if I'm still doing it in ten years' time, I'm sure I'll find something else.

There is a whole bunch of great British actors of my age who aren't film stars or theatre actors; they're very much both.

It's lovely to have a part that requires you to learn something that's also interesting.

I just don't think any job is worth sacrificing your private life for.

Part of George R.R. Martin's brilliant storytelling is taking the carpet out from under your feet.

I didn't want to be stuck in Dickens period dramas because then I would never know if I was any good.

My parents both work in publishing, and I was a bright, academic kind of kid, and I read a lot of books, and when you read a lot, I guess the muscle that gets exercised is where you can hear the voices in your head. You can turn words into pictures and into sounds and into colors and smells.

If you're going to be related to someone it might as well be Dickens.

I believe your thoughts are your thoughts, but are you a human being in front of the camera, or an actor? They are two different things.

I went to prep school, Eton and Oxford. When people hear that, they think they know you, and you think: 'No, you don't.

It's always crude to link Dickens back to the blacking factory where he was sent to work aged 12 when his father was imprisoned in Marshalsea Prison for bad debt, but it was obviously a huge part of him.

The less friendly your relationship is on camera, the more useful it is to be friends with them off camera.