If you think about how broadcast mini-series approach historical events, there is a hagiography. There has been a soft, very glossy idea about history. And one of the things I like about Game of Thrones, for example, is just the grit and the authenticity.

It's not that writing staffs don't change at all, but they don't change very much. Directors are freelancers. There are directors who do five or 10 episodes of a show every year for years, but most directors are freelance, they come and go.

If you think about how broadcast mini-series approach historical events, there is a hagiography. There has been a soft, very glossy idea about history. And one of the things I like about Game of Thrones, for example, is just the grit and the authenticity.

I believe really deeply in the pilot process because you learn things about tone and casting.

We've actually bought quite a number of historical pieces. We are doing a piece on the abolitionists, Harper's Ferry and the abolitionist John Brown with Paul Giamatti.

I don't think I ever had any relationship with any showrunner, over time, with whom I didn't have conflict.

We also have a piece about the Mayflower, but it's just a very different, very gritty, very character-driven version of why those people were on that boat and what the experience was like for them, emotionally, physically and spiritually, and also the Native Americans and what the state of Native American society was at that time.