A lot of dramas get a bad name commercially because they are unremittingly bleak.

Films about the English monarchy, they tend to have a lavishness, sumptuous imagery, it's all very posh and rich.

American movies are often very good at mining those great underlying myths that make films robustly travel across class, age, gender, culture.

The thing that fascinates me is that the way I came to film and television is extinct. Then there were gatekeepers, it was prohibitively expensive to make a film, to be a director you had to be an entrepreneur to raise money.

I decided to be a filmmaker when I was 12. I had utter clarity that this would be my life.

Actors are programmed to see the worst. If you're talking about an actor's TV series, you say, "I loved you last night." And they go, "What about the week before?" They immediately worry.

I think English film is very embarrassed by patriotism, generally.