Hollywood is really weird to talk about in this monolithic sense because it's this microcosm of anywhere. It's full of a lot of people who have different intentions and different points of view.

I think, because it's one of my favorite moments in [Charles Manson's Hollywood]. That series got a lot of attention and people talk about it a lot, but they tend to focus on the episodes that have more to do with the murder, Charles Manson doing something particularly weird, or Sharon Tate.

Between the action sequences, the pleasure lies in observing impeccably dressed Brits exchanging barbed witticisms - making it, basically, Downton Abbey with cyber crime and shower sex.

Now I'm in a situation where I have to plan very far ahead because there are people who are selling ads, so I have to really know what I'm going to do months in advance. If something's taking me a little bit longer to research, that's not okay. I can't take longer. I have to just get it done.

In terms of the way the industry operates, the studio system was such its own thing. It's so different now that it's a globalized world.

There's a fantastic, thousand-page book by David Thomson about [David O. Selznick]. Again, it's not the best argument or the best advertisement for his story, because most people aren't going to read a thousand-page book. But I feel like the rise and fall and the work [Mayer] produced - not just the movies, but the memos, the volume of writing - he's just so passionate, and that's really exciting.

I was trying to see if I could produce an episode - completely write it and research it and record it and edit it - all by myself in a week.