[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.

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].

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.

It's always good to have a world that people don't know about - a world that hasn't yet been done. It's like treading on fresh snow. You're the first one 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.

[The Girl in the Spider's Web] can't be anything other than a sequel, but a couple of books have been skipped, so it is different, in that sense. It's really taking a very strong central character and thinking, how do you execute this? It's quite different.

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.