"There are a lot of characters in the film and plenty have very little screen time. Helen Mirren's character is quite an angry woman. She's stressed throughout the whole film and yet she manages to convey a depth and subtlety of character even though, in the hands of a lesser actor, the part would seem quite limiting. The reason I turned that character into a woman was because I couldn't stand the influence of Bill Nighy, who played the role in the TV series. I saw the show a long time ago and I deliberately didn't watch it again before we started because I didn't want the weight of influence on my shoulders. But the one character I didn't know how to translate, and the performance that really stuck in my head, was the Bill Nighy character. He made it so much his own and it was only when I thought I'd turn it into a woman that suddenly I thought of Helen Mirren. She's got many of Bill's qualities, but she's also believable as a Tina Brown-esque character, part of the old school of journalism now trying to get to grips to the new era. I actually met with Bill Nighy about it, and he was very interested to come back, but the reason I didn't in the end was because I was trying to escape the influence of the series and I thought that could have been the kiss of death. I was finding it so difficult to separate the character from him."