that sounds like a really interesting event, and I would love to hear anything else you remember them saying about Sam (for Anna and Michelle too, but especially Sam) :)
(x)
Yeah, it was really good! They honestly didn't say all that much about the actors, which is partially why I didn't make a post (also I was there with my Professional-Writer hat on as opposed to my fandom one, and I do try to keep them relatively separate). The bulk of the conversation was about how they developed the story and then a lot of it was about writing around archive footage, and how to weave fact and fiction in storytelling. Jo, the head producer was there too, and she spoke a lot about financing the show, which I find super interesting, but appreciate that it's not really for other people, haha.
They mostly just said that they were very lucky with the cast, and how lovely they were. They did say that the cast hadn't signed multi-year contracts, so each time they were renewed, they were worried the actors wouldn't come back, especially with Anna and Sam booking other jobs. Michael said that they're both very loyal people though, and wanted to see the character's through (although he did mention that Anna said she needed Helen out of her head by the end of s3). Michael kind of echoed what Rolin's said before, which is that Sam will ask a lot of questions about scripts, whereas Anna's more comfortable just saying that she doesn't like things, haha, although he did tell a funny anecdote where Anna told him she hated a scene, but couldn't remember which one it was, so they were trying to find it in the script and she was like 'oh, that's not the one I was thinking of, but I don't like that one either', and then Sam chimed in echoing that he also didn't like that one, and Michael was like, head in hands over it, haha.
He's also talked about it in other interviews, but they ended up taking quite a bit of dialogue out of certain scenes with Anna and Sam, because they know they can convey it in their expressions, which is a testament to how good they are as actors, and also how good Emma is at directing them.
Oh! Actually he did say too sometimes that you don't know if a scene will work until you film it, and nobody was entirely sure if the scene in s1 where Dale comes out to Helen and Helen tells him about being institutionalised was going to work, and Sam and Anna both were dubious about it, but then from the first take it just clicked and they were all really emotional about it. It's a really special scene to him as a result.