Well, that was certainly - to me, until we could film in Charles' room, I didn't even want to bother filming anything else. And in fact, I did hold off and that was the first thing we filmed.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As actors, we went where we wanted to, and the camera followed us: it was like having another person in the room. There was no formal structure to the process. It was very liberating.
Life came in and put me in front of the camera before I could really make a decision, but I think I probably would have gravitated to film.
And we had the perhaps unfair advantage of not having to worry about what an audience was gonna think. We were in a vacuum. We were making little short films, really.
I have never been in, nor have I had any strong particular desire to be in, what is termed a costume drama, but I keep forgetting to think of 'Charles II' as a costume drama.
There was a strange atmosphere on the set because we were filming in this large house, which was used for troubled children. You'd go in and find walls had been burnt down. The building was charged with this history and it stayed with us throughout the filming.
I don't think I'd ever start making a film until I had both the intimacy with the subject and the distance to make it live in a certain way.
I had the most fantastic time filming 'Downton.'
A lot of filmmaking is an endurance contest between you and the people you're filming. Every time that you relax, I promise you, something interesting will happen.
That was the beginning of modern acting for me. You don't have to tell a camera everything. It gets bored if you do and wants to look elsewhere.
We just started filming, and after every scene was shot, we had a rehearsal for the next one.