The actress talks about how they managed to “make our life in this business function like a marriage.”

Imelda Staunton puts family before career.

The Harry Potter Alum, 68, and her longtime husband, Downton Abbey Co-star Jim Carter, prioritize their life together over their work, Staunton said in a new interview with British fashion.

“Success is about working. Success is a really tricky word and should be spelled with a very small S. I think that poisons people,” Staunton said. “I think Jim and I have managed to make our lives work like a marriage in this business, and we take our lives more seriously than our work.”

“Of course we both take (the job) very seriously,” she continues. “But you ask yourself: ‘What is the most important thing here? That I’m playing a different role? Or that we’re going on a really nice holiday, or that we’re having this time in the garden, that we’re having our lives?'”

“But we can afford to say that – I don’t mean financially, but with the work we’ve done and fortunately we’re still doing. I think we know how lucky we are,” Staunton said.

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The couple, who married in 1983, have a daughter together, Bessie, 29. Staunton, who played Queen Elizabeth in The Crownalso told the British fashion the way she and Carter, 75, have coordinated their busy schedules with their family life.

“I think when we got married we said, ‘Look, there’s no point in us being apart,'” she said.

“In the beginning, Jim did a lot more TV and film work than I did in the ’80s. If he wanted to go to an exotic place, we’d say, ‘Okay, I can come that weekend.’ So we made it work. Or there are two jobs: ‘I can go and do this. Do you have to do this? OK? Great.'”

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