TV feels quite constipated, and the thing I find particularly difficult is the branding of the channels where it's not 'Is it a good script?' but 'Is it a BBC2 script?'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Well, I love TV, and I love a good script.
I love TV, don't get me wrong. But with film, you're just banging out this one product and you're not waiting on another script. You have your script. It's great, in that way.
Television theatre, as is implied in its name, should rely on adaptations of scripts written for the theatre.
In my opinion, the BBC are one of the best producers of drama in the world, and it made me incredibly happy to get the opportunity to be one of the leading men in one of their productions.
I think it's always challenging to look at a script and make it your own while maintaining the sense of what the style of the show is.
The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish.
Television's so quick, and there's so many other fun elements to it, but you don't get such good scripts and the time to really make much more three dimensional characters.
The BBC fulfils a wonderful cultural function. Maybe the problem is that it feels it needs to be everything to everybody.
People say: 'Oh, but would you be happy for your show to go on BBC3 if it was just online?' If I was sat here telling you I had just signed a huge deal with Netflix you'd be going: 'Wow, that's amazing.' You can't see it as 'Oh, it's no longer a channel because it's not on TV.'
I think television scripts have become really intriguing and well-done. And writers have stopped drawing any actual line between film and television they used to never cross.