'Game of Thrones' was the first fantasy thing I've done, and like a lot of people who enjoy the show watching it, I didn't expect to respond to that world, but when I started doing it, I really started to love it, started to realize that some of the things I'm naturally drawn to.

My heroes were people like Jim Jarmusch. Scorsese was my god. Spike Lee was exciting, doing exactly what we thought we were going to do: personal movies based in, and about, New York. My heroes were all participating in an economic model that was collapsing as I was finishing film school.

I used to play with model trains when I was a kid, and then I used to study history.

I just love drawing on past human cultures; that's a thrill for me.

I love things that have one foot in history - I was going to be a history professor before I sold out and went into TV.

On 'Game of Thrones,' we always shoot away from the green screen because it's bloody expensive to shoot green screen.

The funny thing is more money doesn't necessarily get you what you think it's going to get you and the way where it does get you more value on screen.

There's a very devoted fan base that really loved 'T1' and 'T2' and felt burned by 'T3' and 'T4,' so when we said, 'We're going to do it again!' the reaction was, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa - what do you think you're doing?'

I think calling for more women in every aspect of this industry is a sensible thing.

Coming off 'Sopranos' and 'Mad Men,' I was starting to feel like I was being spoiled creatively. I wanted to move forward as a director in TV and get more involved in the process. After having those two great experiences, doing regular episodic TV wouldn't be quite the thrill.