Brendan Coyle

The qualities I am looking for in Miss Right are intelligence and humour. ”

I took a gamble in becoming an actor and my dream job has been realised. ”

I had to escape the destruction of my father's bankruptcy and all that difficulty. ”

I would have loved to have been a footballer like my great uncle Matt Busby, but I knew quite early on that I wasn't going to make the grade. Luckily I was told by the age of 13 that I wasn't good enough. That's not a bad thing. You see this 'X Factor' generation of kids now who don't accept that they're not good enough. ”

Acting meant so much to me. ”

My dad was a master butcher and I trained to be a butcher when I left school. I didn't enjoy it at the time but I love cooking now, so perhaps I would have been a chef. ”

You can't be a casual observer of something humorous - you have to engage, you have to find it funny for the relationship between actor and audience to work. ”

When I was in my 30s, I was at the end of a long-term relationship and going through a very hard time. I'd had about 15 different addresses and a series of relationships. I thought, 'It's time to have a look at yourself.' ”

I can pretty much say all of us know when 'Downton' is going to end. This is a show with a finite life. ”

I'd seen a play of 'Richard III' in Coventry when I was 15, which sowed the seeds that you could act for a living. ”