David Stevens is so proud that he got to be part of 'Beauty and the Beast'.

Dan Stevens

Dan Stevens

The 35-year-old actor starred as The Beast in the 2017 live-action remake of the classic Disney animation - alongside Emma Watson and Luke Evans - and admitted it was amazing seeing the "ripples of love" following the release of the movie.

Speaking on 'Good Morning Britain' on Friday (24.11.17), Stevens said: "It was amazing. It has been an incredible year actually and seeing that film go out and the ripples of love all over the world."

'Beauty and the Beast' has been a huge hit, banking an astonishing $1 billion at the box office worldwide, currently making it the 21st highest-grossing film of all-time.

Now, Stevens is currently starring in a new movie about revered Victorian era English author Charles Dickens - 'The Man Who Invented Christmas' - alongside Hollywood legend Christopher Plummer and the 'Downton Abbey' star said he was "fascinated to dive" into the iconic 'A Christmas Carol' author.

He said: "I was fascinated to dive into the man behind it and dust him off the shelf. We often think of the Victorian period and anything period as grey and dull with Dickens with a beard and he was this very sane, calm man who wrote all these wonderful novels that we just now leave on the shelf. The guy must have been very manic, I think. [And] it's all true. His daughter talks about it in her diaries walking into the study finding dad in the mirror pulling these faces and mad voices and not wanting to be disturbed for hours until he had conjured these characters and visualised and found the exact name.

"He couldn't work with them and put them on the page. And that's a topic we pick up on in the film."

The new film by Bharat Nalluri tells the story of how Dickens brought to life characters including Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim and other classic characters in 'A Christmas Carol' - which was wrote in only six weeks and continues to endear as one of the most popular festive stories of all-time.

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