Jessica Brown Findlay

I'm hungry for a cold and mean character. I'd love it if someone thought I could play gritty. I want to play a baddie - someone really scary.

I've got four piercings in my left, so we've dubbed my right one the 'period drama ear.' I have to be filmed from that side when I do emotional close-ups in 'Downton.'

I trained as a ballet dancer - well, I started when I was two and a half, and was serious about it from when I was eight until I was 18.

I wanted to be a male ballet dancer.

It took me realizing that a broken heart has never actually killed anyone to find the courage to ask for what I want, in just about every situation. That was part of my own growing up.

Recently, I was in Bernalda, my dad's ancestral home town in Italy. He has just refurbished a palazzo and turned it into a hotel, so we had my sister's wedding there. It was beautiful.