Dan Stevens considers Uma Thurman a great influence on his acting career.

The Downton Abbey hunk recently swapped the small screen for the silver screen, and can soon be seen in suspenseful movie The Guest.

And ahead of taking on his role in the film as a war veteran who watches the family of a fallen comrade after returning home, Dan watched a series of movies to inspire himself – one of which was Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

“I love to cite Uma Thurman as an influence,” Dan said in the interview with AintItCool. “While Kill Bill is maybe not Tarantino’s greatest film in some ways, I think in terms of sheer enjoyment in the cinema and the soundtrack for that movie and the thrill that I got watching that, I certainly never forgot.

“It was a movie that I literally ran out of the movie theatre and grabbed some more friends and took them back to the next screening. And I always wanted to make a film like that.”

The Guest also sees Dan show off his muscular physique in a scene which shows him exit the shower wearing just a tiny towel.

And the star admitted that while the scene took a lot of preparing for, the reactions his friends gave him was less than complimentary.

“I’ve only seen it with a group of my friends in London last week,” he added. “There was a very different reaction there. But yes, it was a huge part of the preparation for the character. I wanted it to look right, wanted it to feel right.”