35 Quotes by James Watkins

Where previously the international underworld was a world of local, often-warring mafia territories, it has become globalised. The criminal has become corporate, and the corporate has become criminal. Organised crime has become very organised indeed.

We want 'McMafia' to be a tense gangster story but also a family story. It's a collusion of those two worlds.

Television is ever more ambitious, more akin to the Victorian novel with multiple narratives and more discursive material.

I think audiences are far too sophisticated now to have an English actor putting on a Russian accent - it feels fake.

If you look at 'The Sopranos,' there's this notion of a criminal element on its last legs.

It helps for actors if you have one director.

Living in London, you feel the sense of how it has developed into a service city. People come here from around the world - both to launder their money and launder their reputations.

Chemistry's a weird thing. You can see actors who are friends in real life but have no screen chemistry. Then there are actors who don't get on but have great chemistry.

If you think about the traditional mafia stories we grew up on, it is always about the death of criminal organisations - things like the 'Sopranos' - the last vestiges of once proud families subsumed by the modern era.