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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

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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

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[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.
Steven Knight
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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
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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
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No screenplay is possible, unless you get some attachment from somebody who's going to get it made.
Steven Knight
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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
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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.
Steven Knight
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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I didn't direct [the Taboo episodes]. I wrote all of them.
Steven Knight
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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
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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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[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
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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.
Steven Knight
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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
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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