As an animal lover and as a sometime-meat-eater, I've read so much about the emotional sophistication of pigs and cows and sheep that I do think twice when I do still eat them on occasion.

I, as the writer, can be very clear that I am writing a work of heightened fiction, as opposed to documenting horrible things that happen every day in the world. Which I have no interest in doing.

I think accessibility is what often denies horror its deserved attention. So it all depends on the execution and whether mainstream audiences can accept it.

Silence Of The Lambs is a fantastic film. It's a horror film, and it's an incredibly well-told film that is about point of view in such a unique way. The way that film is shot, the way the eyelines are so close, if not directly into camera, betrays an intimacy with the characters and the audience.

You can't measure a dog's intelligence by giving him a verbal test 'cause it's not on their scale, but that doesn't mean they're not intelligent creatures.

The definition of horror is pretty broad. What causes us "horror" is actually a many splendored thing (laughs). It can be hard to make horror accessible, and that's what I think Silence of the Lambs did so brilliantly - it was an accessible horror story, the villain was a monster, and the protagonist was pure of heart and upstanding so it had all of these great iconographic elements of classic storytelling. It was perceived less as a horror movie than an effective thriller, but make no mistake, it was a horror movie and was sort of sneaky that way.

Hannibal is very much a secular story, even though we dance right up to the supernatural a few times in the show, and, arguably, you could say we dipped our toe in an instance or two.