There were three options [in Allied], which were for [Bred Pitt] to shoot [Marion Cotillard], for them to escape, or for her to pull the trigger, which is a heroic act to spare him. When I was thinking about how it would end, a long time ago, I think I tried each of them to see, but two of them did not work.

It felt [at the Allied set] like, "At last, I'm in Hollywood," even though I was in West London. It was like, "This is how a film should be made." It was beautiful.

I find the best way to make things real is to just put two characters into a space and let them talk to each other in the way that they would talk to each other, and then see what they would say. I know it sounds weird, but that leads the plot and takes you in another direction.

The story [of Allied ] itself is the story I wrote, and that's what's great about Bob [Zemeckis ]. You have meetings, but it's meetings for clarity, not to change what they're saying or doing. He takes what's on the page and executes it so brilliantly.

There was an unbelievable amount of animosity in that war [for America Independence] which people have forgotten, which was still around 50 years later.

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.

[Taboo] has been exactly the same as working with the BBC in that creatively they do that precious thing which is to only make a comment when a comment needs to be made.