It's often the case with successful TV shows that they kind of inadvertently live on past their prime. It's best to leave the audience wanting more.

It's like that old expression: "Men plan and god laughs." You sort of see that in the television world, where you have an idea where things are heading and you have a plan and sort of start off in that general direction, but you wind up taking all these side paths and whatnot - if you're lucky.

I think that for me, as far as audience expectations and how you manage your anxiety, it helps to keep things in perspective.

Whatever it takes to get you where you need to be, there's nothing wrong with the method acting or having to growl and bang your head in a corner and get into the moment and work yourself into a lather - if that's what it takes, so be it.

If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished. I hate the idea of Idi Amin living in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years of his life. That galls me to no end. I feel some sort of need for biblical atonement, or justice, or something. I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen. My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. 'I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell.'

I've imparted that philosophy to the writers, but some of them look stuff up while some don't. Same with the editors, directors and actors. To each their own.

It's often the case with successful TV shows that they kind of inadvertently live on past their prime. It's best to leave the audience wanting more.