Julian Fellowes's Quotes

I think the reason why people love 'Downton Abbey' is because all the characters are given the same weight. Some are nice, some are not, but it has nothing to do with class or oppressors versus the oppressed.

Most of the soap operas always use the Christmas special to kill huge quantities of their characters. So they have trams coming off their rails, or cars slamming into each other or burning buildings. It's a general clean-out.

My parents came from different backgrounds. My father's was grander than my mother's, so my mother had... to put up with the disapproval of my father's relations.

The great houses of Britain have, for centuries, been the guardians of much of our history, not just of the families who built and lived in them, but of the people who worked there, of the local area, of all of us.

The moment I was introduced to my wife, Emma, at a party I thought, here she is - and 20 minutes later I told her she ought to marry me. She thought I was as mad as a rat. She wouldn't even give me her telephone number - and she wrote in her diary: 'A funny little man asked me to marry him.'

There are some men who are frightened by strong women and some men who are nurtured by them and feel nervous, with weak clinging vines. And I am very much of the latter category.

There isn't much point in the whole 'celebrity' nonsense unless one is prepared to go out on a limb and, one hopes, speak up for some under-represented section of the community.

To be honest, when you're running a series and you have an open end, you don't want to limit yourself too much with the choices you've got for a particular character.

What the Americans want to see is life in their drama. Life of all sorts: hard lives, easy lives, or lives which, like most of ours, are a mixture of the two.

When people are feeling insecure about their jobs and there are cuts to be made, it's hard to put up an argument that the film industry needs funding.

You see, in America, it's quite standard for an actor to sign, at the beginning of a series, for five or seven years. The maximum any British agent will allow you to have over an actor is three years.

Plenty of friendships are sustainable through dinners and lunches, but will not stand a week away. So be careful with whom you go on holiday.

When you are desperate to get someone who isn't all that interested in you, you lay siege as hard as you can.

My own belief is that most people are trying to do their best. It doesn't mean they have no nasty side, or that they don't have a bad temper, or that they have never done anything they feel ashamed of. But fiction operates on people waking up trying to be horrible, and I don't think most people are trying to be horrible.

What I dislike about movie culture is that it often presents a parable of our problems - but the issues are all straightforward and the people are either nice or they're not. In real life, everyone falls between those perimeters, but not many American films operate in that grey area.

A lot of actors find it impossible not to ask for the audience's sympathy. They have a need to twinkle.

For most directors, the scriptwriter is about as welcome on set as a member of the Taliban.

I always like to arrive at the airport early to enjoy breakfast and lounge about so that when I get on the plane all my travel fever has disappeared.

I always loved movies and the cinema; we always used to go to see films as a family.

I don't think I'm an unkind person, I don't think my books are unkind, and I don't think my readers are unkind.

I envy people who can think, 'No, I'm not going to work today' when they have a huge pile of deadlines stacking up.

I have derived enormous confidence from being a husband and father.

I have fits of melancholia when I watch the news, but we all do, don't we?

I just don't believe in generalisations.

I mean the truth is, I've always been interested in the whole setup of the Old World.

I think American television changed world television in its reinvention of the series.

I think Americans are wonderful film actors - the best in the world - but they are a very contemporary race and they look forward all the time.

I think every period - except for the 14th century, or something - has some merits.

I think I have a very detailed sense of observation. I am interested in the details of people's lives and what information these details give.

I'm seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don't think is unfair.

If you are lucky, you have your moment. But it is never more than a moment. You have to enjoy it while it lasts.

If you're supposed to be a 'personality,' then you might as well have a personality.

In the end, drama is successful if you care about the people.

Most of us don't want to be outsiders.

My childhood was a happy one, spent in a tall house in South Kensington and later in East Sussex, but my early and mid teens were less successful.