Steven Knight

“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...”

“I was doing two things at once for quite a long time. I was working in television and writing novels.”

“In the States a lot of Hispanic and black audiences are gravitating towards 'Peaky Blinders.' A mate of went into a bar in Santa Monica and sent me a photo of four blokes dressed as Peakies...”

“Whenever I went to L.A. the first thing people said in the meeting, no matter what it was about, was how much they loved 'Peakys.' So Hollywood was really going for it which is always a good...”

“There has been a tendency only to deal with a certain social class when it comes to stories more than 100 years ago.”

“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...”

“In Britain, when the working class are summoned for fiction, it's 'isn't it a shame, isn't it a pity, isn't it awful, the terribly poor things... ' whereas from within, it's nothing like tha...”

“In terms of the symbolism, I think that if you do it right, writing is a bit like dreaming.”

“Well directing TV is very time-consuming, so if you are going to direct TV, a season will take a year out of your life.”

“I never set out to write a script that is 'topical.'”

“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...”

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

“I do lots of projects in film and TV. You have some that are lucky, and some that are unlucky.”

“I will never unravel the mystery of how a script gets into the hands of certain people.”

“Manchester's history is cotton and wool. Birmingham's is iron and steel.”

“In history there's what's written down and there's what actually happened.”