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 was thinking of going to London drama schools or to New York, because France didn't accommodate the things I wanted to do in film.

The flaw of an amateur is to assume what's in our head is what's on the page.

The blessing that this film business has given me is that when I walk into a school I automatically have everyone's attention. They want to hear what the guy from 'Con Air' and 'Desperado' has to say.