Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens on Emmy wins

Dan Stevens plays Matthew Crawley in ITV1's Downton Abbey

One of the stars of Downton Abbey has told Newsbeat it's 'absolutely amazing' for the show to win six Emmy awards.

The drama was named best mini-series or movie at the awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday night.

It also won directing and writing prizes, whilst Dame Maggie Smith was named best supporting actress in a mini-series or movie.

"Everyone's over the moon," said Dan Stevens, who plays Matthew Crawley in the ITV1 show.

Ratings battle

"It's absolutely amazing. I was getting texts all through the night from Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary, who was at the ceremony. She was there with some of our producers and cast.

"I found out that Julian (Fellowes) has won, (Dame) Maggie (Smith) had won, but then the texts went quiet and I thought maybe we hadn't won the mini-series one."

"Then at about 7.30am I got a call from Michelle saying we'd won. She was already at some party with the Mad Men lot!"

The show has also won the ratings battle against BBC spy drama Spooks. The first episodes of both series were scheduled against each other at 9pm on Sunday night.

Roughly twice as many people watched Downton Abbey as Spooks.

An average audience of 9 million tuned in to watch Stevens and his co-stars in Downton Abbey, whereas only 4.6 million watched the new series of Spooks kick off.

Dan said: "If I was in Spooks I'd personally be quite upset that the night had been moved.

"I think it had a loyal midweek following and that's obviously been dented quite massively."