Steven Knight Quotes

[2015] it's a time that there's a clash of ideologies, similar to the Cold War. I think that a story like this has been waiting to be told, and I think it's a fresh look at the whole earth-shattering business of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The plan is that there would be three seasons [in Taboo], and, as with Peaky Blinders, I have had a destination in mind from the beginning, because I think it helps as a writer. The destination in mind is that James Keziah Delaney sets foot on Nootka Sound. But that's a long way off.

I like to create a character where you believe, deep down, that they don't really care if they live or die. That's very liberating for the character because, if the character is prepared to die, then they can do anything. It's impossible to stop them.

I find the best way to make things real is to just put two characters into a space and let them talk to each other in the way that they would talk to each other, and then see what they would say. I know it sounds weird, but that leads the plot and takes you in another direction.

With any period piece I think the thing to do is forget that it's not contemporary when you're writing and to have the characters feel as much as possible like characters that you would know.

What I wanted to do [in Allied] was get two characters who fall in love for real, across the barricade, and then it transcends the war.

I think it creates so many more opportunities and pitfalls in that you are treading on fresh snow, so you're in a new place.

I'm always interested in characters who are closed down, but who open up when they choose to, rather than when they're obliged to. I think that's a very appealing thing, for an audience and just in life. I like the idea that something will say nothing, and then get straight to the point. That feels like how your heroes should be.

I always thought it would never happen. And then, it became possible. In between commissions, I wrote it as an original screenplay [Allied].

I wouldn't put myself in that bracket, but it's one of those things. I think what helps is that we [with Tom Hardey] don't socialize, we don't really know each other, we purely work together.

East India Company were a huge multinational that had the added impetus that they felt they were spreading Christian civilization around the world - so they were pretty free to do anything they wanted.

There [in Allied] was depicting London in the war, as well, and doing that in a way where you see something that you don't normally see, which is how hedonistic it was. In reality, that's what was going on. But, all of it worked.

[Taboo] has been exactly the same as working with the BBC in that creatively they do that precious thing which is to only make a comment when a comment needs to be made.

It's always good to have a world that people don't know about - a world that hasn't yet been done. It's like treading on fresh snow. You're the first one there.

I spoke to Tom's [Hardy] manager and said, "While we're talking about Taboo, do you mind if I also mention this film project that I've got, which is called Locke, and I need Tom to play the lead." And we spoke about both in that meeting and in the end the deal was that I would do Taboo if he did Locke and vice versa.

In other words, when you have someone [like Ridley Scott] with that authority, then you tend to be left alone. But they were good and they're really good people, and I'm a big champion of the BBC and I think that like minds find each other and I think that FX and BBC is a perfect match.

I'm not suggesting that ours [series] is unique in that, but they can begin to have that depth, that gravity, they can spend some time, so it's a bit more like reading a good novel, if you like.

The story of James Delaney is also someone who very deliberately presents himself as an individual and plays nations against each other, plays the East India against the Crown, all of those sort of overwhelming concepts that ran the world at the time.

In terms of how [Allied] looks, it's fantastic and much better than I had hoped because it's so lush and so beautifully executed.

You work, especially in the movie business more than in TV, but you have an environment where people feel obliged to have an input because that's what they do, and I think sometimes it can clutter things up and make things more problematic.

Suddenly, after years of television being the poor relation and film being everything, it now feels like film is a conjuring trick. It's like, "Oh, my god, how are you going to do that in 90 minutes, as opposed to eight hours?! I've got so little time to do this!" It becomes an art form, in itself. Doing both helps you do each one.

East India Company weren't an evil organization that went around deliberately oppressing people, but they were driven by profit, and how familiar is that now?

I think once those friendships, if you use that as an analogy, the friendships between the audience and the character is established, then you can start to take liberties. I believe that as this unfolds people will find the time invested worthwhile.

[The Girl in the Spider's Web] can't be anything other than a sequel, but a couple of books have been skipped, so it is different, in that sense. It's really taking a very strong central character and thinking, how do you execute this? It's quite different.

I'm very bad at watching anything. I'm bad at going to theaters; I can't watch my own stuff; I watch a lot of sports.

Expect the unexpected, is what I'd say about Taboo. It's different. I don't think you've seen anything like it. It's getting incredible responses, so fingers crossed.

The sandstorm, which I think is an absolute triumph, could have been awkward. It's sex in a car, so who knows. And I think the rooftops look fantastic [in Allied].

I don't think that jealousy and love and hate and anger and all those things have changed in the past 200 years - people just express themselves differently.

If you've read something brilliant, it's good. It's good to look out the window and see what's going on in the world.

The story [of Allied ] itself is the story I wrote, and that's what's great about Bob [Zemeckis ]. You have meetings, but it's meetings for clarity, not to change what they're saying or doing. He takes what's on the page and executes it so brilliantly.

I've been writing so much. And what happens with TV is that they split [Taboo] into two blocks, so you get a director that does four and another director that does another four. You commit yourself to seven days a week, for 12 or 13 hour days for a long time. I couldn't really do that.

I think people are drawn to characters that break the rules. I think there is something about a good person doing bad things for what they consider to be a good reason. Then the battle is on to almost prove to the audience that it's justified. How far can you go with that? How far can that character go before people won't accept it? Trying to walk to edge of that line is a challenge.

James Delaney as an individual is sort of like a grain of sand in an oyster who is irritating all of them. But for me he's a creature of the time, like the industrialists who started the Industrial Revolution who extricated themselves from their class and their background

It's such a gift when you know who you're writing for and you know that that actor is capable of so much that you can relax a bit.

[The film Woman Walks Ahead] is from a long time ago. I wrote that ages ago. It looks gorgeous and Jessica [Chastain] is so good that I've got high hopes.

I relish the eight-hour format of a single season because it gives you time to do that.

I must have been about 11 when I read the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which I read, over and over again.

I think the East India Company represents what we would think of as a very modern approach to the world where everything was counted, every penny was counted.

There was an unbelievable amount of animosity in that war [for America Independence] which people have forgotten, which was still around 50 years later.

When Brad [Pitt] responded [to Allied], suddenly what was impossible became possible, which was great. But along the way, whenever I told the story, it had an affect on people. At its core, this was an effective story.

True stories are always good because they're so odd, and so unlikely.

I've spent three hours with Snoop Dogg, talking about how he loved [Peaky Blinders series]. And David Bowie loved it. The late Leonard Cohen was a fan. It struck a chord with various people that I didn't think it would.

When I was probably about 10 or 11, and I found it was simply something I could do. When you're at school and you do something and you get praised for it, you think, "Oh, right, well I'll do that." From then on, I always thought I'd be a writer. I thought novels at first, and then I sort of naturally drifted into TV.

I love cooking and kitchens.It's just a great world, and I wanted to explore it. You see the façade, the outside, the public part, and then you just walk through one door marked "Staff Only" and you're in a different universe.

There's more to come. Series 4 [of Peaky Blinders] is coming soon. But I'm proud of making my hometown, which is considered to be completely unfashionable, slightly fashionable. People actually know where it is now.

I visited the set [of Allied] a few times, and it was a great set to visit. A lot of it was in West London, in an old Gillette factory. You'd go into the factory through the security, and then there were a lot of camels and goats. Most sets are really dull, but this was fantastic.

Obviously, television is a writer's medium, so you get a lot more power and authority. With a film, the discipline is having a beginning, middle and end, and having it work in a specific space of time.

There were three options [in Allied], which were for [Bred Pitt] to shoot [Marion Cotillard], for them to escape, or for her to pull the trigger, which is a heroic act to spare him. When I was thinking about how it would end, a long time ago, I think I tried each of them to see, but two of them did not work.