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Hugh Bonneville has a new movie out today, entitled To Olivia. He plays the famous children's author Roald Dahl, at a very sad point in his life when he and wife Patricia Neal (Keeley Hawes) are mourning the loss of a daughter. 
To gear up for the new role, here are 10 things you may not know about the likable star of Downton Abbey and W1A.
1. He has served as a Deputy Lieutenant of West Sussex since 2019.
This prestigious ceremonial role reflects Bonneville's high standing within the West Sussex community. Essentially, the Deputy Lieutenants of any given English county assist the Lord-Lieutenant in representing Queen Elizabeth II at large local events and formal functions.
2. He volunteered to administer Covid-19 vaccinations at the height of the pandemic.
Residents of the town of Midhurst in West Sussex may have been jabbed by Bonneville without realizing it, because he would obviously have been wearing a mask. He told The Independent at the time: "As soon as Midhurst said, ‘We’re looking for volunteers at our vaccination center,' I said, 'I'm in!' I'm secretly very excited. I get to wear hi-vis and point at people!"
3. For a time, his mother worked for the U.K. secret service.
Bonneville learned later in life that his mother was a part of MI6. But, as you'd expect given the delicate nature of espionage work, she didn't talk about it. "It was only long after she retired that I realized she'd worked in the old MI6 building," Bonneville told The Guardian. "She wasn't a spy, more of a diligent Miss Moneypenny, dutiful and productive."
4. He definitely didn't wear red lipstick when he appeared on Top Gear in 2014.
As Bonneville explained on The Graham Norton Show, much to Bill Murray's amusement, he just has naturally very red lips.

5. Before his acting career took off, he worked in a London pub and as a cleaner.
At the time, Bonneville was saving up for a trip to Africa, but he soon realized that bartending wasn't for him. "I tried working in a pub up the Edgware Road in London. It was bleak, really bleak," he told Radio Times. "There was a three-legged dog in the corner and one bloke at the bar and the room was full of cigarette smoke. It was depressing beyond hell. I thought, ‘However much I want to fly across the world, I can’t do this.’ That’s why I took up the toilet cleaning, at a legal firm in Marylebone."
6. If his acting career hadn't worked out, he planned to go into the law.
Bonneville has said he gave himself three years to make it as an actor, and believes he would have made a "terrible" lawyer. "Thankfully it never came to that, although my father and I once had this ridiculous pipe dream that we would read for the bar together [to become barristers], studying in an attic like a pair of Dickensian codgers," he told The Guardian. "Instead, he carried on being a surgeon and I stayed doing this."
7. Bonneville is actually his middle name.
His full name is Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams, but he dropped the "Williams" from his professional name for practical reasons. He told the Cambridge Student that he decided to become "Hugh Bonneville" because a director pointed that there was already a well-known British actor called Hugh Williams.
8. As a teenager, he suffered from "horrible panic attacks."
At the time, Bonneville wasn't really aware of what they were. "Mental health was not addressed or shared in the same way it is now,” he told The Big Issue. "Particularly if you’re in a boarding school environment where any sign of weakness is… not necessarily pounced on, I think we were a very benevolent school on the whole, but some people suffered. I can analyze what I had as panic attacks now, but at the time I thought I was having a heart attack."
9. He has a degree in theology from the University of Cambridge.
However, Bonneville told the Cambridge Student that he "tended to do more play than work" during his time there.
10. He has absolute respect for the great Dames of British acting.
Bonneville told Saga that his Downton Abbey co-star Dame Maggie Smith gets all the best lines, saying, "And if she hasn’t, then she makes them into the best lines."
He added, "She is a formidable actress. When you are in a room with her you think, this woman is in her eighties, and is she okay? Before we started filming, she had been poorly. Yet there is absolute steel in her. Dame Judi Dench is the same, so is Joan Plowright and Eileen Atkins. I’ve been lucky enough to work with them all."
Do you feel like you know Hugh Bonneville a bit better now?