Chris Chibnall

If ever there was a character that was never defined by gender, it's the Doctor. The Doctor is gender fluid in that sense.

I think you always need to take new, big risks from a storytelling point of view.

Drama is not a literal portrayal of events. It's a depiction, it's impressionistic.

Every writer has compressed time and procedure, and used clarifying dialogue. That's not a scandal: it's a legitimate dramatic technique.

Broadchurch' has always been about the impact of crime, on all those affected.

Broadchurch' has been a life-changing experience for me, but all good stories come to an end.

It's a 'Doctor Who' budget. A BBC budget, although a very good one. But you know you can't do dinosaurs endlessly for 45 minutes, so there has to be a big 'other' story going on.

My goal is always to leave you slightly wanting more.

Everybody loves great actors.

My embarrassing confession is that my father is a 'Camelot: The Musical' obsessive. So as a child, when we were going to visit relatives on the weekend, whenever we were driving back on these three-hour drives, he would be playing the musical soundtrack on repeat, on the cassette in our car, to the extent that we begged him never to play it again.

I love 'Doctor Who' as a big, popular, mainstream, accessible show.

You do your best to tell your own story, in the most specific way, and then you hope that that travels well, when it's done with heart and honesty.

I don't ever want to be gratuitous, for the sake of being gratuitous, but when it serves the stories and the characters, it's nice to be able to do that, realistically and with credibility. You don't want to do it for the sake of it, or shoe-horn it in. But, it's a good tool to have in the toolbox.

There have been so many different versions of the legend and of 'Camelot,' so what I wanted to do was strip it all back, and go back to the beginning and tell the story of Arthur, from the beginning of the relationship between Merlin and Arthur.

Growing up as a Brit, Arthur and Merlin and Camelot, and just the idea of it, is embedded in the culture and in your soul, growing up. King Arthur is alongside Robin Hood, as those great British folk tales, myths and icons.

I'm not on social media.

Broadchurch' was all about shades of grey, both in characters and storytelling, and I wanted to see that through to the end.

I think sometimes actors who have predominately done comedy get a little typecast by some people.

I've come from theatre and you have different productions of a text in theatre. It's not unusual.

There's nobody you can't love once you know their story. I believe that to be, in the majority, true.

The papers feed the public interest but then the public interest demands more in the press and speculation can look like fact.

As if we didn't have enough fabulous actresses, it's a thrill to be joined by Wales's finest, Eve Myles. Having worked together on 'Torchwood,' it's a joy to be able to welcome her to 'Broadchurch.'

I think women were gradually becoming more independent - the feminist movement of the Sixties didn't just spring out of nowhere.

Born And Bred' is pure escapism, and where we film is one of the most beautiful places in the country.

The north-west coast of America is that mixture of beauty and savagery, which I felt was very similar to the Dorset coast.

Often what happens with the writing is that you know where you want to start and you know where you want to end, but the journey is never quite what you predict because the characters take on a life on their own.

Torchwood''s never going to be as heavy an effects show as 'Doctor Who.'

I mean, I'm always happy to be compared with Scorsese!

I'm incredibly grateful and humbled by the response 'Broadchurch' got.

If you can do something exciting and unusual, you might as well give it a go.

Normally the lightbulb moments only happen after 16-hour days, lots of cups of tea and a bit of weeping.

What I didn't want to come in with is 'Camelot' in all its pomp and glory. Instead we're looking at how you build a society, how you build a world that people believe in, and how hard it is.

We didn't want 'Camelot' to become a period drama.

There's something very interesting about world leaders promising hope and then carrying through on that.

That's what I love about 'Doctor Who' - it takes you back to being the age you were when you first saw it.

Often as a writer, you get your first draft out, and then you look and think, 'Now, what have I got here.' You're really just throwing mud at the wall and then going, 'Oh, there's a pattern there.'

I love a 'Doctor Who' cliffhanger.

I think you can tell different types of stories within a 'Doctor Who' two-parter.

I don't think any of the journalists in 'Broadchurch' are villainous. I think they're all trying to do their jobs under difficult circumstances.

At every point in 'Broadchurch' you're continually told and pulled back into the emotional cost.

So actually, for me, 'Doctor Who,' you want it to be the show with all the emotions and all the feels, really, and that you've had a good emotional workout, from laughter to tears to fear and excitement.

The range of 'Doctor Who' is, I would argue, bigger than the range of any other television program or movie franchise.

In an ideal world, 'Doctor Who' makes the whole nation eight years old, with that excitement and engagement and wide-eyedness.

The tradition, particularly in old-school British detective things, is everybody's in the drawing room or the library, and they're all gathered, and the detective walks around and tells them where they were that night, and you see the flashbacks.

If we lose the BBC it would be a disaster for the entire country. I genuinely believe that.

I have no issue with my boys looking up to women.

I think 'Doctor Who' is the greatest idea television has ever had, and our job is to convince the rest of the world.

But I think whenever you're bringing in a new Doctor, you have to set it up in a really great way because it's an entry point for a whole audience. Because the audience of 'Doctor Who' is everyone from eight to 108, life is continually creating new viewers.

Doctor Who' is such a broad show. It's got the whole universe to explore.

Having made other shows, the thing with 'Doctor Who' is that you're doing everything, all at once.