Steven Knight

“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. And then, there are notes and you change it, in the conventional studio system.”

“Any attempt to recreate a world of 1814, or 100 years before that - I think it's important to understand that the people of the time had a different concept of what reality was. Their reality was much more haunted.”

“There's such a wealth of literature from the 18th century and 19th century, George Eliot... Jane Austen... that's all about a genteel high society, relationships, all of that stuff. There wasn't ever really, apart from Dickens, a literary evocation of working class life.”

“I am definitely going to continue directing, but I am always going to try to explore new ways of making films. It really is possible to make films in different ways.”

“My mum was a bookies' runner at nine years old and my dad's uncles were Peaky Blinders and gangsters.”

“There's a grown-upness about television now that wasn't there before. You do know you're doing stuff for adults who can tell the difference between right and wrong, well hopefully, and make judgements about violence. And with 'Peaky,' always if there is an act of violence, there is a consequence.”

“Peaky' has attracted a lot of attention from different disciplines in the arts. It was originally going to be a ballet, which is Ballet Rambert, and there is also a lot of music artists who offer their music to the show to be used on the soundtrack.”

“I remember going to Birmingham City matches as a kid and there were these other kids in Small Heath who had their own odd, partly Scouse accent.”

“To get a game show into production is as challenging and as intellectually demanding as it is to write a novel or screenplay.”

“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.”

“I want to make people see that evil is seductive and that we need to be careful.”

“I'm not a big fan of prequels to be honest.”

“I'm a massive Bowie fan, always have been.”

“Locke' is a different way of making a film as well as being a different sort of film.”

“I often find in the film world, that it's very self-referring. If you talk to someone about films, they talk about them in terms of other films - rather than as something that happened to them in their life. And I'm really keen to get back to film as a reference to real things, not necessarily to other films.”

“Horses do sense things way before people.”

“Any genre as it's called, I think can be quite reductive in terms of what a film is, because I think there is an eagerness to put in any film, in anybody's work, to give it a genre title and I think as a consequence of that, the film starts to obey the rules of the genre.”

“Part of the reason for doing 'Peaky Blinders,' apart from the fact that it was a personal story and I've always wanted to do it, was what was great I felt is that Birmingham is probably the least fashionable city in Britain.”

“No money has ever been spent on 'Peaky Blinders' in terms of publicity, there's no massive campaign - because it's the BBC you just get the trailers. But what's happened is people have found it for themselves and I think the loyalty is greater when people find than when they're told to watch something.”

“I think it is best that if you are the writer you just leave the director to it. With the caveat that you state, 'Be gentle with the script. And if there are changes, consult me.'”