I find it very invigorating having Ken Lonergan, who's an established, Pulitzer-nominated playwright doing Howards End, or Chris Hampton who's won an Oscar writing a TV series, or having an actor like Mark Rylance, who is probably England's leading theater actor, in the lead in Wolf Hall.

I find it very invigorating having Ken Lonergan, who's an established, Pulitzer-nominated playwright doing Howards End, or Chris Hampton who's won an Oscar writing a TV series, or having an actor like Mark Rylance, who is probably England's leading theater actor, in the lead in Wolf Hall.

One of the things that's different about London and the English market is that theater and film and television are all based in London. It's not quite the same as in the States where if the playwright here wants a successful TV or film career, they're whisked away by Hollywood.

I had read the scripts that Nora Ephron had written as a movie about Mike McAlary. We were never able to make it at HBO because we couldn't cast it properly and when I left I called Nora and said, "Look, I actually think that the movie luckyguyindustry has changed. It's very unlikely that you'd be able to make this as a movie. I actually think it's a play."

When I did Nicholas Nickelby originally, that was a co-production between the new Channel 4, Polygram in Europe and Mobil Oil in America, and I have been involved in working on co-productions for years on both sides of the Atlantic and that's very much at the core of what Playground is doing. So marrying, finding projects that can be co-produced and can be produced using the very best talent from both sides of the Atlantic that's absolutely right at the center of what Playground is doing.

When I started producing it was right at the beginning Channel 4 in England. Nicholas Nickelby which was my first credit as a producer was Contract 001 at Channel 4 - that was the start of independent production in England and the emergence of an independent sector.

You never know, until you put a play up for an audience, whether it's going to work. Things you think will work don't, and things you're not sure about work really well.