You once said in an interview that a team of eight to ten authors would devise the scripts of The Tribe. Were they always the same ones during the five seasons?
In the first few years, approximately 20 authors were tried out for the series. Those were then cut down to six very reliable people by who we could be assured that they would be doing a good job. All of them save one were aboard from the beginning.

What kind of skills does an author for The Tribe have to have?
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. There were a few scriptwriters at the start who I thought would be very good but somehow they didn’t gain access to the characters and the concept. I think it’s crucial to consider the characters important for oneself and to understand them. One has to be able to put onself in this extraordinary situation in which the characters live. I think the concept is really unique, the show is partly drama and partly adventure. And some authors simply can’t master this.

Do you have any favourite movies, directors, authors, TV shows or actors?
I admire all shows that give talented scriptwriters an opportunity to shine. The accomplishements of authors don’t always get appreciated, but every good producer, director or actor knows that a good script is pivotal for a great movie or series. One of the old Hollywood behemoths/leviathans/mammoths once said that a good movie needs three things: the script, the script and the script.
Recently I’ve seen the classic ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ again and again it showed me plainly that today we just don’t have such great screenplays, marvellous actors and brilliant directors anymore. The contemporary films attach too much importance to unbelievable action scenes and special effects. One day, when the gadgetry will be exhausted for good, the audience will get bored and demand for good stories again. So that it’s gonna be like in former times, when your parents told you a thrilling story before going to bed. As for contemporary productions, I think the two “Toy Story” movies, “Finding Nemo” and “Shrek” are good models for storytelling.

Did you read a book recently you would recommend?
I advise “Godfather” which I finished lately. It shows well how the structure of a novel can keep the readership at it.

There’s no ‘good vs. evil’ formula/pattern in The Tribe. Even a character like Ebony who does really bad things has her good sides. On the other hand, characters one could call the “heroes” do reprehensible things now and then. That’s quite unusual in TV entertainment. Was this intentionally planned or did it just evolve that way?
Every author of the series knows, that all people have good and bad sides to them and they avail this to create complex, three-dimensional characters who are always interesting to the audience. In the majority of cases, black-and-white characters are an evidence of pretty simple screenplays.

In the second season, there were some episodes that dealt with the lives of Zoot, Ebony, Trudy and Lex before the virus. Those episodes are very popular among fans. Why didn’t you do something similar with other main characters, for example with Jay or Slade?
The characters, whose lives we showed before the virus happened, were part of The Tribe from the beginning. They’re so important for the show that we wanted to tell of their past lives to give the viewers the chance of understanding them better and to comprehend why they’ve become who they are. Zoot is a good example. What kind of person he was pre-virus and how he turned into someone quite different simply gave us a lot of material for storylines.

Since the beginning of season four, the series has got a lot more sci-fi elements due to the Technos and their sophisticated technology. Was this happening on the basis of story development or did you purposefully try to enhance the science fiction?
I think the Technos were introduced because, after all the chaos and anarchy after the virus, such a group would have naturally developed. In the rough, The Tribe dealt with mere survival. But as soon as people are able to satisfy their basic needs, they normally begin to try controlling their environment. Technology allows it to control and alter your environment. Of course this gets nasty when it falls into the wrong hands. A famous politician once said: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Ram and Mega are testimony to that. When we established technology in the The Tribe, we were able to explore modern themes of our society and to show the dangers when it gets out of hand.

Are you also involved in the announced sequel The New Tomorrow?
The spin-off is written by the same author team as The Tribe. I can assure you that it’s gonna be just as thrilling and profound as the original series, but it’s set in a completely different surrounding. It’s gonna be more in the countryside than in the city. But the original characters of The Tribe will have a massive influence on the new characters in the sequel.