I may add that, and I take some pride in this, Benedict Cumberbatch was my idea, you know, long before we had a show. And one day I was visiting Steven Spielberg’s set, one of the locations for War Horse, and there was Benedict, whom I’d never met. And obviously he was in uniform as he was playing an officer. And it was absolutely horrible because as far as I was concerned I was meeting Christopher Tietjens. But of course, he didn’t know anything about it. Then a year later he was doing it. So in a way, I feel we were blessed.

Tom Stoppard

"I have such a huge affection for Christopher, more so than almost any other character I've ever played. I sympathise with his care, sense of duty and virtue, his intelligence in the face of hypocritical, self serving mediocrity, his appreciation of quality and his love for his country. He mourns a way of life that is being eroded by money, schemers and politicians, ineffectual military boobies and the carelessness of man's industrialised progress. He is a noble if accidental hero fighting for relevance, a man out of time who is struggling with political and economic injustice. That's what makes him relevant in what could be dismissed as 'merely another Toff in a period drama'.

Benedict Cumberbatch

"The thing I felt about Sylvia immediately is that she’s one of these women who is incredibly, instinctively intelligent. She’s emotionally intelligent. She’s bright. She’s whip smart, quick witted but she’s utterly uneducated, and she’s bored. So, in a sense, all of that brain power goes into manipulating people. And she doesn’t have the capacity to analyse herself or think analytically so she can’t understand why she does it or even, really, notice that she is doing it. And beyond that it’s her method of survival and also her method of entertainment.

Rebecca Hall

"Valentine is this forward thinking, vibrant, brilliant-minded and really free willed girl with an amazing amount of integrity. It's almost like she's developed her own set of morals which are not influenced by society at the time or her mother or father in any specific way, it's just what she considers right or wrong.

Adelaide Clemens