I'm not one of these people who say how much better American drama is than English. I find it mostly too American, except for The Sopranos, which I think is the best thing.
I'm glad nobody has asked me to adapt 'Wuthering Heights' because I think I would make a mess of it. Everybody makes a mess of it. I think the Bronte Sisters are mad.
I'd love to adapt more contemporary novels. But there isn't really enough story and character to make a really satisfying serial, so they tend to be single dramas.
I had a mother who was very emotionally demanding, wanting to be the centre of attention. As they say in EastEnders, she thought it was all about 'er. I spent a lot of time trying to work out what was going on.
I got quite cross when I heard about Emma Thompson adapting 'Sense and Sensibility.' It was absolutely childish of me, but I thought, 'I should be doing that. They didn't even ask me.' Some mistake, surely.
From time to time there is a move to do a little less in the way of period dramas, but people rebel. Audiences say we want them. There is a big hunger for them. I don't think it's sentimentality or nostalgia, it's often that they are simply the best stories.
An adaptation I was working on of Trollope's 'The Pallisers' has been axed by the BBC... I was also going to do Dickens' 'Dombey and Son' but they've asked me to do 'David Copperfield' instead.
'Affinity' is beautiful and intense, with no laughs. It's a rather delicate and emotional love story, with a spooky element.
The writer in movies is about as low as you can get and you really are a hired hand. You are paid a lot of money to be treated like dirt.
The BBC fulfils a wonderful cultural function. Maybe the problem is that it feels it needs to be everything to everybody.
Taking the humour out of Dickens, it's not Dickens any more.
Rebecca Eaton has made an enormous contribution to the cultural life of America, and, more than that, she is one of the most fun people I know.
Plan for each episode to be a satisfying experience, but still leave the audience thinking, 'Oh, my God! Now what?
People in the BBC are always dying to get out of their open-plan offices.
People like bonnets. I don't think you can under-estimate that.
