You know that when you suggest something on the page, it's going to be there, plus more. It's a great luxury to know that you don't have to push it. You just lay it out, and it will be there.

When Brad [Pitt] responded [to Allied], suddenly what was impossible became possible, which was great. But along the way, whenever I told the story, it had an affect on people. At its core, this was an effective story.

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

Expect the unexpected, is what I'd say about Taboo. It's different. I don't think you've seen anything like it. It's getting incredible responses, so fingers crossed.

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.

[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.

It's always good to have a world that people don't know about - a world that hasn't yet been done. It's like treading on fresh snow. You're the first one there.