I think the benefit of being a writer is that I'm looking for the subtext on the page, because all good writing has subtext. And as a writer, you look at the big scope of things, the big story, rather than just your individual story line, because I think it's important to know what you're in and how you fit into it.

There was that sense that as soon as a Northern Irish person opens their mouth, you go, 'Ah, terrorist,' so I refused to do TV and film. Instead, I did theatre for 20 years.

I grew up with the idea that someone might hate you if they knew what religion you were; being afraid to open my mouth because my accent might make people think something about me. Or even if they didn't, would they understand me?

Sometimes you even start to sound like the character because you're living and breathing them every day on the set. It gets into your bones.

I was working for a Swedish TV show - I'm Swedish - who basically did kind of spectacular stories. It was almost like CBS '60 Minutes,' but a Swedish version where we actually did travel quite a lot. After a while, I realized that travel is the most fun part of this, so why not do it for a longer time and just go off and explore?

When I started, I was 18 and really into punk rock and just wanted the action. Over the years, I've gravitated towards the travel and experience around surfing and trying to relay that feeling. Going forward, I'm interested in story-driven and personality-driven themes.

All this misjudgment that we have of each other is based on ignorance. The second you get to travel, you see that human beings, no matter where they come from, they are the same.

Finney is about the best writer of time travel stories ever, and I adore time travel stories - have to make a time travel game someday!