Of course, it goes through the Renaissance and Elizabethan England – all these great minds, these great writers, Shakespeare and the Founding Fathers of America, they were all great classicists. And around the world there are archaeological sites like Pompeii where you can visit the ancient world as a living, breathing place.
Why return to Pompeii? What is the appeal of this city and this moment for you – and indeed for everyone?
We tell stories about the past to understand something about our present, and somewhere, like Pompeii, this is the gate where the 2000 years that exist between us and the past are compressed. It feels like it all happened yesterday, and the reason I love it so much is because I realize that people haven’t changed at all. Of course, our technologies have changed, our methods of communication, and different types of systems have changed. But the basic elements of the experience of life are the same. We still have the same questions—philosophical questions, existential questions—about what it means to be part of a political community, what it means to be alive and to be mortal on this Earth. They were fascinated by these issues, and we are still fascinated by them. Any reading of the ancient world only enlivens the imagination, and I personally feel less alone in the world knowing that they were thinking the same thing.
This connection between us and the ancient Romans really comes through in the series through its dramatization of the lives of ordinary people. Why was this approach important?
That’s what touches me so much. On that fateful day when Vesuvius erupted, ordinary people were going about their daily business. I guess the goal is to invite the audience to sympathize with these people. Here is this child who is just starting his life and he has his first job. He’s trying to make his mother proud, but they’ve fallen on hard times and it’s not easy for him. You have a businesswoman who is in a position of responsibility, and then to see that when the eruption happens, she has all these clients that she is responsible for, and her first thought is about their safety and security. And then a soldier who is on leave in the prestigious resort town of Herculaneum, but has excellent training. He’s the man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but his training can be used to help people get into boats and off the beach.