I really love storytelling, and I love the stories as they reveal themselves. It's an incredibly nourishing process; it's probably the closest I come to having a religion.
I know a lot of shows are like, 'Here's the pages,' right before they start filming. I'd have a heart attack. The anxiety would be way too much for me. I don't have as strong a backbone as those other show writers.
I felt pride, wonderful pride, when I was captain. It was an honour to take over from Labby. Anybody who has ever captained a big club, which Everton are, will tell you it's a great honour.
I'm not like J.K. Rowling, where I know there's going to be this number of seasons, and I know exactly what's going to happen. I would be so bored if that was the case. There would be no journey. There would be nothing to discover.
I need to feel like the work I'm doing is not necessarily important, but meaningful, at least to me, because otherwise it just becomes a day job. It just becomes factory work and I get really frustrated.
It's easy to look at the vampires as a metaphor for any feared or misunderstood group. It's also easy to look at them as a metaphor for a shadow organization that says one thing and has a completely different agenda on their mind, and anybody who gets in their way, they just get rid of them. Does that sound familiar?
I think all writers are armchair psychologists to some degree or another, and I think a character's sexuality is fascinating. It's a great way to really get at the root of their identity, because it's such a personal thing.
It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about.
Ultimately, physical resemblance isn't as important as whether this person can bring this character to life in a way that's compelling and makes me care about what happens to them.