The female attention I have to struggle hardest with is from my two-year-old daughter.

I'm amazed by just constantly - there's not a week that goes past where there's not someone in Ulan Bator or Rio De Janeiro suddenly says, 'Ooh, 'Downton' started this week.' You completely forget it's staggered across the world.

Oh, it is quite possible that none of us in 'Downton' will ever again get the ratings this has had. But from a career point of view, it has opened so many doors.

We take so many of our freedoms for granted nowadays - I can travel where I like, I can have a baby when I like, I can do any job I want - but I do think chivalry has been lost a little bit.

I think it is important for children to read different things to find out about their emotions and other people's emotions. It is an enormous source of education and culture.

My second novel began after my family moved from New York City to North Carolina, and I watched my son walk into kindergarten at a school in which he was the only Jewish child out of 600 students - and this in the middle of the Bible Belt.

If you would be just as content winning a local Golden Gloves fight as you would making a pile of money as a professional, then fine, go become a boxer. But if the whole idea is for you to get rich, my God, stay in school and learn a profession.

When I was at school you got an overall general education on many things, even just basic facts.