With 'Vikings,' I had the task of making these people interesting and, to a point, sympathetic.
From Michael Hirst
The American obsession with 'Downton' amuses me slightly because it's such a fiction. I've always been questioned about my historical veracity, and 'Downton' just flies past, when it's completely made up.
TV drama - not always, but on the whole - were pretty appalling and very secondary, too. No one expected it to be like watching a movie; that was the point. But I think when you start watching 'Vikings,' it is like watching a movie - you're taken somewhere else.
People offer me loads of stuff, and some of it I like, but I just can't do it because I can't write it all. So I might get in the position where I have some sort of company and just write maybe the first episode, but these are love projects, in a way.
I couldn't give 'Vikings' away - I mean, I love these people. And I'm not sure anyone else writing it would necessarily have the same feeling towards the characters that I do.
You have to create characters - certainly in series TV - who people engage with. They don't have to be nice; you don't have to agree with them. But they do have to be compulsively watchable and believable and human, and you want to know what happens to them.
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