When J.J. [Abrams] called Lisa [Joy] and myself, he pitched us this idea of, what if we turn the structure around and started with the hosts. For us, that gave us a way to play with everything that we're interested in, all at once. It's the ultimate playground for us because we deal with questions about artificial intelligence, which is something I've long been fascinated by, but also human intelligence, or the lack thereof, human behavior, and interactive, immersive storytelling.

None of us like violence in the real world, but we're fascinated with it onscreen.

I always love it best when you have a project where there is this commingling of the subject matter and the way in which you're recording that subject matter.

Television is very different than working on film. With films, you get to develop a set of characters, and then, at the end of the film, you have to throw them away.

To a certain degree, with a TV show, people are looking for a certain amount of familiarity. You don't want to pull the rug out, but you also want to keep things fresh and keep changing it up.

I've always been interested in themes of memory, paranoia, and revenge.

You'd have a quality insurance department, where they're making sure there aren't any glitches or weird things, and that the guests have a great experience and seamless experience. You'd also have security. So, we laid out the corporate structure, and then we cherry-picked from that the people who would be brought into the most conflict and the most day-to-day relationship with each other and with the hosts.