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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.
Steven Knight
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Steven Knight
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: August 5
Executive Producer
Film Director
Screenwriter
Birmingham
West Midlands
Feels
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Writing
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Thing
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Much
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Forget
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Contemporary
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More quotes by Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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].
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
No screenplay is possible, unless you get some attachment from somebody who's going to get it made.
Steven Knight
There's lots of different ways of writing stuff and lots of different mindsets to have, but I think when it's your own creation, it's more pleasurable because you have total control.
Steven Knight
When you're watching, I find two things happen. You either watch a film and it's really good and then you think, Why can't I do that? Or you watch a film and it's not good, and you think, Why am I doing this? So either way, it feels like being at work.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
You know that when you suggest something on the page, it's going to be there, plus more. It's a great luxury to know that you don't have to push it. You just lay it out, and it will be there.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
With FX in particular, they've been fantastic and were really hands off. I mean, it helps that you've got Ridley Scott on your side.
Steven Knight
I've realized that the only thing I'm interested in is the performance. If the performance is right, then I'm happy. You offer up the dialogue and then the performance comes around.
Steven Knight
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.
Steven Knight
