Michael Hirst Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“I wasn't setting out to write a documentary; if I had, I would have done it in a completely different way. I was asked to write a drama that would appeal to a big audience in America that had no knowledge or interest in The Tudors at all.”

“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.”

“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.”

“People offer me loads of stuff, and some of it I like, but I just can't do it because I can't write it all. So I might get in the position where I have some sort of company and just write maybe the first episode, but these are love projects, in a way.”

“The American obsession with 'Downton' amuses me slightly because it's such a fiction. I've always been questioned about my historical veracity, and 'Downton' just flies past, when it's completely made up.”

“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.”

“TV drama - not always, but on the whole - were pretty appalling and very secondary, too. No one expected it to be like watching a movie; that was the point. But I think when you start watching 'Vikings,' it is like watching a movie - you're taken somewhere else.”

“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. With 'Vikings,' there isn't that - things to strip away. There's very bare storylines; we know a few facts about Ragnar.”

“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.”

“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.”