I read more and more and I came across this character, Caroline Weldon. Sometimes in history, you find these people that no one would dare create. They're too mad.

East India Company were a huge multinational that had the added impetus that they felt they were spreading Christian civilization around the world - so they were pretty free to do anything they wanted.

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.

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 was 21, when I heard the story that inspired this [thriller Allied], and I wasn't even a screenwriter then.

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.

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.