'Downton Abbey' about upper-class posh people: of course it is.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it.
People in L.A. think I'm so posh. They think I live in 'Downton Abbey.'
It's quite confusing being one of the less wealthy people at a posh place.
If someone thinks I'm posh, it just shows how lowly they are. Some people think I went to Eton. I'm far too stupid to get into Eton.
So often in English fiction, people are either upper-class twits, or else they're knockabouts, less than human.
Everything is about class in England, whether it's upper, lower or middle. Why should that be?
When I first left drama school, I was too posh for the working-class parts and not posh enough for the upper-class roles. You know what England is like: the gradations of accent and how you're judged by them are still there. I discovered that to get a break you have to lie about where you're from.
There are lots of actors who are posh and stick with that, and there are lots of actors who are cockney, and that's what they do. That's fine, but I don't think that could be said about me.
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.
'Posh' is not really political. I didn't want to aim a brickbat at the system. Or to bash Old Etonians. It was always the class and privilege aspect of that world that I was most drawn to. There is something endlessly fascinating about imagining something you could never be involved in.