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Before we made films about gangsters, everything was about the royal families. They contain so much drama.

I think we do have our true, original stories that work. I can tell you that 'The King's Speech,' which we did, became a worldwide smash because people loved the personal story.

You know that I had heard so many times people say things like, 'You could never write 'Harry Potter' and have it be about Harriett Potter because nobody would read it; people only want to read an adventure story if it's about a boy,' and I thought, 'I don't think that's true.'

I'm not a big fan of kids' movies that have this knowing snarkiness to them or this post-modern take on storytelling. I think that sails right over the heads of most kids. There's something to be said for a well-told fairy tale. There's a reason that these mythic stories stay with us.

Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.

If you read 'Lord of the Rings' and dismiss it as a lie because it has orcs and elves, you're missing the whole point of the story. If children don't have to be concerned about strangers because there's no such thing as a Big Bad Wolf dressed like Granny, you're missing the point.

Other kids' parents wouldn't let them read magazines like 'Weird Tales,' but my folks were big readers themselves, so they didn't mind.

If you look at the British royal family and take away the scandals and the goofy stuff that's going on, people love to have this king to look up to - the royals are like celebrities.

Children's authors don't talk down or patronise their younger readers.

For me, any fiction of nobles and swords necessarily has to be a story of corruption, injustice and savagely violent conflict - because any other treatment is going to have all the heft and realistic honesty of a bedtime fairy tale for five year olds.