What I really found was that the one similarity between Covert Affairs and Fair Game is a deep love and admiration and fascination with the home life of a spy.

I started my career wanting to make a 'James Bond' movie, and I couldn't get hired! I made 'The Bourne Identity,' and ultimately the impact of that film was that it changed the 'James Bond' franchise.

I had just come off doing a lot of commercials when I did Go, so a part of the fast pace and efficiency comes from the discipline I had to learn from telling stories in 25-second increments, and that type of discipline is insane.

TV has no choice, but to rely on character, and everybody knows that. I love working in it. It's such a big canvas where, if you're successful, you go on for years.

At the end of the day, I like the spy genre, as opposed to the action movie genre, because spies are smart. The successful spies are the smarter spies.

I realize I am contradictory: I have an independent filmmaker's sensibility and a Hollywood director's short-attention span.

When you can come across a piece of material that's totally original and fun and completely satisfying, you jump on it.