But what he’s really, really good at is being brave and bold, and saying let’s try new things. His new strategy, that was very bold, was let’s get fifty scripts that are really good, and let’s start making a show. We’ll know where the show’s going, we’ll be able to tell any actor or director that this is what’s going to happen in twenty weeks’ time. There was no talk about him selling the company. That was as big a surprise to us as it was to everybody. That was all going on very quietly behind the scenes. I think it happened very quickly. I’m not sure what made George suddenly decide that he wanted to get out. Because he was very happy developing Star Wars with us.

What was your last day, then? Was it a normal day, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, and then the project just stopped?

No. We just came to the end of the process. He wanted fifty scripts, and we got to the point where there were fifty scripts. Some of them were at first draft, some at third draft. Some needed a lot more work, some were in a really good shape. We had a good sense of the overview of the world, and where it was going.

And we shook hands, and hugged, and I said to George what a wonderful privilege to spend so much time with him, and I had a lot of fun. We did have a hell of a lot of fun. He’s a very funny man to hang out with.

We would sit there and storyline, and Rick, the producer, would often be in the room. But if Rick had to go off for a couple of hours, George would look around the table at us as if to say, ‘now the producer’s gone… us writers can have some fun!’ And he’d whisk us down to his screening room, and we’d watch an old movie. He put on his personal print of American Graffiti and have us a live director’s commentary while we watched it! He loved to do things like that, he really did.