Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Steven Knight
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: August 5
Executive Producer
Film Director
Screenwriter
Birmingham
West Midlands
Real
Talk
Way
Space
Plot
Make
Sound
Leads
Things
Another
Weird
Would
Two
Sounds
Character
Direction
Best
Characters
Find
Takes

More quotes by Steven Knight

Image
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.
Steven Knight
Image
No screenplay is possible, unless you get some attachment from somebody who's going to get it made.
Steven Knight
Image
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.
Steven Knight
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Steven Knight
Image
I wanted to take a damaged individual in a damaged society with damaged relationships between nations and take a look at how this individual survives amongst them, and that for me as a writer is the connection that you needed to get inside the skin of the main character and wonder how he's going to cope with all this.
Steven Knight
Image
I didn't direct [the Taboo episodes]. I wrote all of them.
Steven Knight
Image
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.
Steven Knight
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
[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.
Steven Knight
Image
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.
Steven Knight
Image
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
Image
[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.
Steven Knight
Image
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.
Steven Knight
Image
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
Image
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.
Steven Knight