As an actor, youre always nervous as to what a director will do with something.

Whether its Veep or Homeland or The West Wing - which is a more idealised version of democracy - people are fascinated by politics.

You risk working with this director, you risk making this movie, you risk working with another actor you don't know. It makes your heart beat faster. And it keeps you interested.

I went through a period of great rebellion within my family, when I was about 9 or 10. I was mad, I had no focus, had no real interest in anything, and so I started to do things that were just rebellious and stupid.

When the story is good enough, people can watch something three times the length of an opera.

I can imagine there is going to come a time when someone will do 13 hours of a story without breaks.

Netflix did it right and focused on all the things that have replaced the dumb, raw numbers of the Nielsen world - they embraced targeted marketing and 'brand' as a virtue higher than ratings.