Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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 love the BBC. I love working with the BBC. They leave you alone; they give you zero notes. It's like being on vacation.
[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.
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.
To get a game show into production is as challenging and as intellectually demanding as it is to write a novel or screenplay.
In terms of how [Allied] looks, it's fantastic and much better than I had hoped because it's so lush and so beautifully executed.
It's such a gift when you know who you're writing for and you know that that actor is capable of so much that you can relax a bit.
There used to be grandparents who would say that if you were misbehaving the Peaky Blinders would get you, they were the bogeymen.
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.
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.
I always thought it would never happen. And then, it became possible. In between commissions, I wrote it as an original screenplay [Allied].
[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.
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.
I think it's always good not to listen to what the rules are supposed to be about the arc of the character and the third acts and all this stuff.
Now because the film industry is what it is, if people are expecting a certain film genre and they're not getting it, there are howls of outrage.
It's good sometimes to have a character that starts as one thing and ends as another, but James Bond, Hercules, these are pretty enduring stories.
The film business seems to attract rules more than any other business. I don't know why it does. I think it's because there's so much money at stake.
There was an unbelievable amount of animosity in that war [for America Independence] which people have forgotten, which was still around 50 years later.
[The film Woman Walks Ahead] is from a long time ago. I wrote that ages ago. It looks gorgeous and Jessica [Chastain] is so good that I've got high hopes.
There [in Allied] were things that were written that were cut, and things that were shot that were cut, but if the film works, they are erased from memory.
Locke' was sort of myself trying to find out if you could give yourself the maximum number of obstacles to make enough drama and seeing if you could do it.
It was great fun to do because of the central character. With The Girl in the Spider's Web, the girl is really the central character. She's the whole thing.
Sometimes if you're a director, you want to believe that you're great and capable at all aspects - the technical side, the lights, everything - but I'm not.
You can make somebody bad for a long time, and people love it when they then do one good thing and it's almost like a triumph. Actors seem to enjoy it more.
I don't think that jealousy and love and hate and anger and all those things have changed in the past 200 years - people just express themselves differently.
Sometimes you take something because it's an offer and it's big and it's good money and you have to absolutely respect that process, because it's not easier.
East India Company weren't an evil organization that went around deliberately oppressing people, but they were driven by profit, and how familiar is that now?
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 think that it's not a bad thing to not be too versed in the vocabulary of cinema, because you start to think that certain things are allowed and not allowed.
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.
The sandstorm, which I think is an absolute triumph, could have been awkward. It's sex in a car, so who knows. And I think the rooftops look fantastic [in Allied].
I read more and more and I came across this character, Caroline Weldon. Sometimes in history, you find these people that no one would dare create. They're too mad.
It felt [at the Allied set] like, "At last, I'm in Hollywood," even though I was in West London. It was like, "This is how a film should be made." It was beautiful.
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.
Expect the unexpected, is what I'd say about Taboo. It's different. I don't think you've seen anything like it. It's getting incredible responses, so fingers crossed.
[Taboo] has been exactly the same as working with the BBC in that creatively they do that precious thing which is to only make a comment when a comment needs to be made.
It's really important to me that 'Peaky Blinders' went down so well in Birmingham. Apparently the audience share in the West Midlands was double that of any other region.
I think an under-recognized fact is that TV has changed because the screens have, we now have these massive screen in our homes... so it's worth making your show look good.
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].
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.'
There's no writers room, or any other writer involved. I write everything from beginning to end. Maybe it's just me not being able to let go of something, especially with 'Peaky.'
Snoop [Dog] said [Peaky Blinders] reminded him of how he got involved with gang culture. It's always fantastically flattering when I see people dress like that and take on the look.
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.
With TV, your structure is determined by the series not the episode. You can have incident without consequence to the character, but keep your eye on the ticking clock of the series.
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.
TV is a writer's medium, the writer is in charge effectively. So what you write is what gets shot, so in that sense I prefer it. But in terms of the scale of it, features are fantastic.
You meet people and you hear the way they talk and the way they behave, and that subconsciously gets fed into the characters you create 'cause you have to make them flesh and blood somehow.
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.
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.
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.