To me there's very few actresses who've had twenty years experience who have that cyberpunk aesthetic already baked in. Scarlett Johansson comes from such edgy films from Lost in Translation to Under the Skin - she's got an incredible body of work and the attitude and the toughness of her really is to me, the Major.

I cast very much from the gut, and I think I was very lucky to be able to get... many amazing international... people that I had always really wanted to work with.

I grew up with a lot of fairy tales. And they had an essence of darkness to them.

Our story is a 'once upon a time', but it's not a 'happy ever after'.

I think you can get away with being a bit more political in science fiction.

So when it was my turn to start developing projects, I knew the writers I wanted to work with, and I had met every head of studio, every executive and a lot of producers. I started finding things, little crumbs off other people's tables that I would make my own.

To trust so much in our devices and sync everyone's device up - we tell people where we are, what we buy and where we shop, who we talk to - and that goes somewhere. The ghost of information technology out there, and one of the points... of the manga and anime was trusting in technology.