I always thought it would never happen. And then, it became possible. In between commissions, I wrote it as an original screenplay [Allied].

It's such a gift when you know who you're writing for and you know that that actor is capable of so much that you can relax a bit.

I've realized that the only thing I'm interested in is the performance. If the performance is right, then I'm happy. You offer up the dialogue and then the performance comes around.

I think the East India Company represents what we would think of as a very modern approach to the world where everything was counted, every penny was counted.

[2015] it's a time that there's a clash of ideologies, similar to the Cold War. I think that a story like this has been waiting to be told, and I think it's a fresh look at the whole earth-shattering business of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

With any period piece I think the thing to do is forget that it's not contemporary when you're writing and to have the characters feel as much as possible like characters that you would know.

Obviously, television is a writer's medium, so you get a lot more power and authority. With a film, the discipline is having a beginning, middle and end, and having it work in a specific space of time.