I think a lot of police procedurals are very conventional. With the stuff I'm doing, I'm trying to approach the institution of the police in a different way.
The advantage you get of something having been on the air for a while is people get to know the characters more, and they get to be more invested in the world.
If you're a drama writer, obviously you always have to tell the truth; there's no element of fiction in at all.
The things I discovered when writing 'Line of Duty' were the tools you have available to write a thriller.
The footballer I've admired most in the last ten years is Zinedine Zidane... one of those rare individuals who had the skill but also incredible vision.
I'm reading 'Ten Storey Love Song' by Richard Milward. I read his first novel, 'Apples,' after hearing a reading of his in the Hague. I really enjoyed it, so I've started this one.
It was an absolute pleasure working with Stephen Graham. I've admired his work for many years, and what he brings is that real sense of authenticity.
'Bodies' remains the drama I'm most proud of.
The problem with individual opinion is that it doesn't necessary correlate with what the mass audience is thinking.
It's important that the actor doesn't feel like they're working in a vacuum. If the actor is told, 'Oh, it's a secret; just play it this way or that way,' it's a bit patronising. I think you have to bring the actor into your thinking and explain things.
Standards in public life have decayed over time... Incompetence is the norm.
There are some writers who don't write about people who do jobs. I'm not going to name them, but you watch one of their films, or you read one of their books, and you think, 'What job do they do?' They seem to have a nice house and a nice income. How have they got it?
The part of my life where my character was defined was at work because of the decisions I make and the things I do, and I guess that's what I feel qualifies me and attracts me to write the characters I do.
I'm always thinking about my work, always thinking about where it's taking me.
I want to be one of those serious, moody writers.
I try and relate my writing to something I know about, and I had a primary experience of being in a competitive, military environment and being part of a squadron.
I do like books to be quite an intense experience, and that's the kind of novel I respond to as a reader.
So with 'Ascent,' one of the things I wanted to do was not make it too remote from the reader, for it to be engaged with the human side and not just to be about the cold metal of planes and spacecraft.
No one was more surprised than me by the success of the first series of 'Line of Duty.'
'Line of Duty' had originally been conceived as a returnable drama, with the premise being that the fictional anticorruption unit AC-12 would move on to a new case in each series, centred on a high-profile antagonist accused of corruption.
