[The film Woman Walks Ahead] is from a long time ago. I wrote that ages ago. It looks gorgeous and Jessica [Chastain] is so good that I've got high hopes.

In other words, when you have someone [like Ridley Scott] with that authority, then you tend to be left alone. But they were good and they're really good people, and I'm a big champion of the BBC and I think that like minds find each other and I think that FX and BBC is a perfect match.

There [in Allied] were things that were written that were cut, and things that were shot that were cut, but if the film works, they are erased from memory.

The sandstorm, which I think is an absolute triumph, could have been awkward. It's sex in a car, so who knows. And I think the rooftops look fantastic [in Allied].

James Delaney as an individual is sort of like a grain of sand in an oyster who is irritating all of them. But for me he's a creature of the time, like the industrialists who started the Industrial Revolution who extricated themselves from their class and their background

I think certain periods of history don't get dealt with because I think historians, and it's their job, but they look back and look for patterns. They look for sequences and they look for reasons, and certain periods of history don't fit with the general pattern of 1500 to the 20th century, during which there's the creation of the United States. At this time of 1814, two nations who would eventually become close allies were at war with each other, so it doesn't quite fit.

I didn't direct [the Taboo episodes]. I wrote all of them.