Almost everything about American society is affected by World War II: our feelings about race; our feelings about gender and the empowerment of women, moving women into the workplace; our feelings about our role in the world. All of that comes in a very direct way out of World War II.

American audiences tend to underappreciate the British, but 240 years ago they were us: They were the most powerful nation on Earth. Their mercantile empire spanned the planet. They had the most potent and experienced army and navy the world had ever seen.

I think the Bush Administration had basically inherited a policy toward Iraq from the Reagan/Bush Administration that saw Iraq as a kind of fire wall against Iranian fundamentalism. And as it developed over the 1980s, it became a real political run-a-muck... even though the Iraqis were known to be harboring Palestinian terrorists.

I'm going to leave WWII. I considered and rejected doing something on the Pacific. Fourteen years is enough. I'd like to take on a different challenge and probably a different era. But it will be another war. It's what I do.

With the World War II era, there's so much written material to draw on. When you go back to the 14th century, you have to imagine more.

Jerusalem will always be the capital of Israel, even if someday a peace agreement were to be reached.

I have always had a longing to talk about this Nazi period because my parents' generation wouldn't talk about it after the war at all. From an actor's point of view, it's amazing to play in one year the Nazi Albert Speer and Claus von Stauffenberg.

In the early '20s, with the war over, there was a period of celebration, and you can see it in the fashion.