If TV seems improved, I think it's been enhanced by violence and sex permissible on cable, as well as better cinematography, but in the end it's really only soap operas like your grandmother's afternoon "stories" and that's all it wants to be or has to be.

The era I love most is the Federal period, just after the Revolution and the formation of the United States. The birth of America as a nation coincided with the Romantic era and I've always been thoroughly into the Romantics and I've always been thoroughly into America, particularly at the time when it was a brand new idea, when it was something brand new in the world. It was a very exciting time in the world because of the birth of America

When I was young I was only thinking of writing, and whatever was going on was unreal and comparatively unimportant.

As first time director, though, you're like a new officer coming up to be in charge of very serious veterans, and you're always going to have guys looking at each other for the first day until they realize you're not screwing around.

I'd been working so hard making the film that I hadn't even emotionally processed the fact that I was a director.

On historical you take the known facts, dramatize them, and then stitch them together by invention. It's a projective thing.

I write drama in the English language. If I wasn't working in London I'd be doing something wrong.