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.

Sometimes if you're a director, you want to believe that you're great and capable at all aspects - the technical side, the lights, everything - but I'm not.

If you've read something brilliant, it's good. It's good to look out the window and see what's going on in the world.

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.

I visited the set [of Allied] a few times, and it was a great set to visit. A lot of it was in West London, in an old Gillette factory. You'd go into the factory through the security, and then there were a lot of camels and goats. Most sets are really dull, but this was fantastic.

I think that helps because there has been no formality of friendship, the politeness of friendship, so we can just work directly on the work that's ahead of us [with Tom Hardey].