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.

Michael Hirst

Once I engage in something, I really engage in it, and I love the process of reading and researching because I come from an academic background.

Michael Hirst

reading age love

It works better if your lead character is complex and interesting and not perfect.

Michael Hirst

perfect character interesting

I only have one idol: John Lennon.

Michael Hirst

lennon idols

I think comedy is the hardest actual form of writing there is.

Michael Hirst

comedy writing thinking

The Vikings certainly didn't write anything about themselves; it was not a literate, but rather a pagan, culture. So what we get was written later by Christian monks. But there were occasional reportings and recordings of people who had traded usually with the Vikings.

Michael Hirst

anything christian culture people

For 'Vikings,' we have to do so much outside shooting, and it's normally - I think with American shows, it'll be 60 or 70 percent inside and a little bit outside, but with us, it's almost 70 percent outside, and that's huge and really difficult.

Michael Hirst

inside think difficult shooting

I've found that using historical material and being rooted in historical material is liberating because I always think to myself, 'Well, this actually happened, and this is fantastic!' That's why I don't like fantasy, in a way. Because it's sort of in emptiness.

Michael Hirst

myself think fantasy 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.

Michael Hirst

feeling writing love people

With 'The Tudors,' I had a huge amount of material, I mean so many books and so much stuff about what they really said. So, in a way it was kind of trying to strip it out and find the stories inside all this material.

Michael Hirst

inside find trying way

Nobody knows what really happened in any historical period. There are some periods where we know more than others, though.

Michael Hirst

nobody some know historical

People love cliches. If you can give people cliches, that's very good TV, then.

Michael Hirst

good you love people

I'm very bad at delegating writing responsibilities, because I've never been able to do it; I've never had any help or looked for any help.

Michael Hirst

help never bad writing

When you're a screenwriter working on a film, you're not really even welcome on set, even if you know... When I wrote 'Elizabeth' and Shekhar Kapur was a friend of mine, but I wasn't really welcome on set, because the director is God and it's a very difficult position for a screenwriter who's put so much passion into that, into the writing.

Michael Hirst

you welcome passion god

When you're making a TV drama, the showrunner is God, and so however onerous and difficult and consuming that responsibility is, you're being treated with respect, so it changes your whole outlook to the production. You're being asked about costumes, set design, music, every aspect of the show.

Michael Hirst

you respect music god

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.

Michael Hirst

nothing character way ideas

The key for me with historical characters is they're interesting because they're human beings. A little bit of Hemingway goes a long way here, but journalists and writers should honestly look at their material and have a real interest, a real passion in what they want to write, and they should also have a lot of knowledge as well.

Michael Hirst

me passion long knowledge

I got interested in the Vikings, and then you realize that there isn't much to be read about them because they did not write their history. It was written by hostile witnesses, by Christian monks and so on. From what I could see and understand, I was really excited about it. I loved their culture and loved their gods.

Michael Hirst

loved you culture history

'Downton Abbey' is just one cliche after another, and it is a really, really poor piece of drama. But that's only me talking. That's just my take on it.

Michael Hirst

me poor talking drama

If you're in America or Europe, walk for three blocks, and you'll pass about 14 Vikings. Their reach was immense.

Michael Hirst

walk you three america

When I did 'The Tudors,' there was massive information available and a ready-made market.

Michael Hirst

market did available information