You do see a few people and you are thinking of how that chemistry is going to work, but it's not really fair to put people who are auditioning together in a room. You have to make that judgement yourself, and that's partly where the casting director is so good. It was that blend that we were looking for.

The BBC came to me and they wanted to adapt the book [Three Musketeers] again, in the straightforward way, and I said no to that. I didn't want to do that. But what I did want to do was have a real look at the adventure genre because I thought it was ripe for reinvention.

The thing about villains is that villains always have their own logic, and they don't necessarily see themselves as villains. Richelieu is not a villain, in his own mind. He's doing what he needs to do.

You do see a few people and you are thinking of how that chemistry is going to work, but it's not really fair to put people who are auditioning together in a room. You have to make that judgement yourself, and that's partly where the casting director is so good. It was that blend that we were looking for.

They're classic themes, which is why I think it's such a great story to look at again. The concept of being loyal to your friends, to the point where you'd even die for them, is a great subject.

Richelieu was a great statesman, and like all great statesman, he was a very ruthless man. He's not cruel. He just does what he has to do. And in his own mind, he's absolutely right.

On a simple level, you need directors who are good at action and can choreograph an action scene, but you need them to also have that sense of fun and that sense of movement and that ability to get the actors to really respond to the material in the way that you want them to. It's a very big thing.