Mr. Hardy spoke about his influences for the show; his beard; and why he won’t gallop on horseback. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

You and your father began developing “Taboo” nine years ago?

I’d just played Bill Sikes in “Oliver Twist.” I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have a Bill Sikes who was well-spoken? Maybe he could be like Heathcliff. With a little bit of Hannibal Lecter, a little bit of Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps also some Oedipus. And then maybe a little bit of Jack the Ripper. And imagine he was a restitution agent and ex-army and had come back and was now irredeemable in society. And my dad said, “Tom, this is an awful lot to put into one character,” and he sent me out of the room. About a year later, he came back to me with a treatment he’d written.

How does the East India Company get involved?

Well, they were around at the time. We were looking for something that reflected global corporatization — J. P. Morgan, Monsanto sort of territory. Some historians are quite upset that we tried to vilify a great establishment.

Tell me about James Delaney.

We wanted to kind of create a modern story, some new writing, which felt like it had come from a book that hadn’t been found 100 years ago and then see what we could do without any dragons or C.G.I. James Delaney is an explorer, a Machiavellian sort of type. He should run the gamut from heinous to noble. He’s gone so far through barbarousness and savagery that he’s come out the other end.