I think it creates so many more opportunities and pitfalls in that you are treading on fresh snow, so you're in a new place.

No screenplay is possible, unless you get some attachment from somebody who's going to get it made.

I've been writing so much. And what happens with TV is that they split [Taboo] into two blocks, so you get a director that does four and another director that does another four. You commit yourself to seven days a week, for 12 or 13 hour days for a long time. I couldn't really do that.

Sometimes you take something because it's an offer and it's big and it's good money and you have to absolutely respect that process, because it's not easier.

I wanted to take a damaged individual in a damaged society with damaged relationships between nations and take a look at how this individual survives amongst them, and that for me as a writer is the connection that you needed to get inside the skin of the main character and wonder how he's going to cope with all this.

I don't think that jealousy and love and hate and anger and all those things have changed in the past 200 years - people just express themselves differently.

When you're watching, I find two things happen. You either watch a film and it's really good and then you think, "Why can't I do that?" Or you watch a film and it's not good, and you think, "Why am I doing this?" So either way, it feels like being at work.