I actually had that conversation with [Channel 4 Chief Creative Officer] Jay Hunt. We were at a bit of a crisis point. I'd written a totally different script - about war, basically - that got rejected at the last minute for various reasons. The whole of the series was in doubt. I said, "Well, there is one other idea ["National Anthem"]."

It's interesting, in the U.K., I'm known for doing comedy things, which often doesn't translate to the U.S.

My wife made me watch this documentary about the Iraq War, and there was a really powerful moment where they followed some civilian whose family had been killed. This was 5 or 10 minutes of this woman talking, and it was extremely arresting. You realize how you never hear from the person on the receiving end of a war without a reporter stepping in to compartmentalize the story. Usually they're just a few shots at the end of a news report, wailing and screaming at a funeral.

I wasn't really aware they were a religious organization for quite some time. But my grandparents were very devout and ran a Quaker meetinghouse and were missionaries at one point.

Technology by default became the thing that was a new thing that had swept in and was altering it everything.

Obviously, you try not to repeat yourself so that forces you to re-evaluate what you're doing constantly [in Black Mirror].

I can worry about anything.