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I love that Viking era, but also they're a fatalistic people and that dictated their fearlessness in battle and approach to life.

Vikings were pretty brutal, but also very educated people. They were salesmen, businessmen who started raiding when business wasn't good. That's why they had such great boats.

With 'Vikings,' I had the task of making these people interesting and, to a point, sympathetic.

I think Vikings have always been popular, haven't they? I remember being a kid and being in second grade reading a book about this Viking warrior.

There are things that Scotsmen get and other people don't get in the dialogue. Scottish characters can be pinpointed by a phrase, targeted very quickly.

Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrian's Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.

I felt that a lot of Viking culture had been caricatured and misconstrued. After all, they were far more democratic than the Saxons and the Francs, who were exercising really hierarchical social structures at that time. The Vikings had popular meetings where everything could be discussed.

The Norse way of speaking, no one really knew what the Vikings sounded liked, they were Norsemen. The accent is really a combination of a Scandinavian accent, maybe with a Swedish accent and an old way of speaking.