Steven Knight Quotes

I think that helps because there has been no formality of friendship, the politeness of friendship, so we can just work directly on the work that's ahead of us [with Tom Hardey].

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.

The story [of Allied] stayed with me, like a stray dog outside the office, waiting.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I think certain periods of history don't get dealt with because I think historians, and it's their job, but they look back and look for patterns. They look for sequences and they look for reasons, and certain periods of history don't fit with the general pattern of 1500 to the 20th century, during which there's the creation of the United States. At this time of 1814, two nations who would eventually become close allies were at war with each other, so it doesn't quite fit.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

The time came where I was able to write an original screenplay [Allied], and it would be read and noticed. I had a meeting with Brad [Pitt], just around the time that he was making World War Z. I basically told him the story and said, "This is what I want to do," and he really responded, so that helped me put the thing together and write it.

[Allied] got the attention of (director) Bob Zemeckis and Marion Cotillard. I'm glad I waited. If it had been made 15 years before, who knows how it would have looked, but it's got the best possible cast, director and everything. It's been fantastic. It was worth waiting.

There [in Allied] were things that were written that were cut, and things that were shot that were cut, but if the film works, they are erased from memory.

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.

[Allied] meant to be a film that's a bit different. It's roots are in the '40s and '50s, and that sort of filmmaking style.

Just the idea that someone is married and they've got a kid, and he reports for work one morning and his boss says, "You're wife is a spy. Shoot her." In the real story, he just went back and did it, which would have been a short film. Therefore, I had to spend some time exploring what you would do.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

It has to be an actress like Marion Cotillard [in Allied] because there are so many levels to it. It's set in the Second World War, when lots of people were doing things that, outside of a war, you wouldn't do, like killing and dropping bombs. She's doing things that one wouldn't approve of, but it's war.

It's great that the story [Allied] is set in the '40s because the '40s feel to it is completely appropriate.

It felt [at the Allied set] like, "At last, I'm in Hollywood," even though I was in West London. It was like, "This is how a film should be made." It was beautiful.

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.

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].

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Snoop [Dog] said [Peaky Blinders] reminded him of how he got involved with gang culture. It's always fantastically flattering when I see people dress like that and take on the look.

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

[Woman Walks Ahead] is from me being a very bizarre child. From the age of about 8 to the age of about 15, I was obsessed with Native Americans.

[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.

It was great fun to do because of the central character. With The Girl in the Spider's Web, the girl is really the central character. She's the whole thing.

A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it.

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.

There's something about the evolution of television where it evolved from to the things that we're now watching and loving. It evolved from film writers, film actors, and I think gradually people are easing themselves into the amount of time they have.

A creative person can suddenly realize it's not 90 minutes. They haven't got to do three acts, they haven't got to do the arc, but they can do other things. I think just as novellas turned into novels, I think that television series can begin to have that depth.

[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.

I am someone who thinks that if you've got an actor like that who wants to perform your work, then you should do it, and hopefully Tom [Hardey] likes to do the work that I do, so long may it continue.

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.

What happened was I was invited to meet Tom [Hardy] to discuss a project that he had in his mind about an adventurer who returns to England from Africa with secrets and with a history, and the original idea was set some 80 years later than it is now. But in the conversation I really took to the idea and I'd wanted for a while to set something in 1830 and 1840 in London, so it struck a chord.

I'm very, very excited because I'm just completing Episode 6 of Series 4 [of Peaky Blinders], which again I think is the best yet. And I'm loving it and it's not like work, it's not like a labor, I love doing it, and the boys are coming back and they're loving the scripts.