Just the idea that someone is married and they've got a kid, and he reports for work one morning and his boss says, "You're wife is a spy. Shoot her." In the real story, he just went back and did it, which would have been a short film. Therefore, I had to spend some time exploring what you would do.

I relish the eight-hour format of a single season because it gives you time to do that.

In terms of how [Allied] looks, it's fantastic and much better than I had hoped because it's so lush and so beautifully executed.

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.

There's lots of different ways of writing stuff and lots of different mindsets to have, but I think when it's your own creation, it's more pleasurable because you have total control.

I must have been about 11 when I read the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which I read, over and over again.

A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it.