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.

The story of James Delaney is also someone who very deliberately presents himself as an individual and plays nations against each other, plays the East India against the Crown, all of those sort of overwhelming concepts that ran the world at the time.

There's something about the evolution of television where it evolved from to the things that we're now watching and loving. It evolved from film writers, film actors, and I think gradually people are easing themselves into the amount of time they have.

The time came where I was able to write an original screenplay [Allied], and it would be read and noticed. I had a meeting with Brad [Pitt], just around the time that he was making World War Z. I basically told him the story and said, "This is what I want to do," and he really responded, so that helped me put the thing together and write it.

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.

I'm always interested in characters who are closed down, but who open up when they choose to, rather than when they're obliged to. I think that's a very appealing thing, for an audience and just in life. I like the idea that something will say nothing, and then get straight to the point. That feels like how your heroes should be.

It was great fun to do because of the central character. With The Girl in the Spider's Web, the girl is really the central character. She's the whole thing.