Steven Knight | |
---|---|
Born | 1959 (age 64–65) |
Alma mater | University College London |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1989–present |
Children | 7 |
Steven Knight CBE is a British screenwriter, producer, and director for film and television. He wrote the screenplays for the films Closed Circuit , Dirty Pretty Things , and Eastern Promises , and also wrote and directed the films Locke and Hummingbird (a.k.a. Redemption). Knight is one of three creators of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? , a game show that has been remade and aired in around 160 countries worldwide. He is also the creator of the BBC's Peaky Blinders and has written for Commercial Breakdown , The Detectives , See , and Taboo .
He has built a large film and television studio complex in inner-city Birmingham called Digbeth Loc., opening in 2024.
Steven Knight was born in 1959 to George and Ida Knight, and grew up in Birmingham, in the West Midlands region of England. He was the youngest of seven children, five of them boys. His father was a blacksmith. [1] [2]
He attended The Streetly School as a teenager, in Streetly, Sutton Coldfield, in the West Midlands. He then went on to study English at University College London. [1]
After completing university, Knight returned to Birmingham and began writing radio commercials, before moving back to London, where he worked for Capital Radio. He first wrote television comedy, then novels, and then moved on to screenplays. [1]
Before he created TV's Peaky Blinders , Knight was best known for screenplays he wrote for the films Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises. His work on the screenplay for Dirty Pretty Things earned him the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay and London Film Critics Circle award for British Screenwriter of the Year. [3] The screenplay was also nominated for several other awards including the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay [4] and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay. [5]
Knight wrote the screenplay for the 2013 film Closed Circuit, which was directed by John Crowley and which starred Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall.[ citation needed ]
Knight wrote a draft of a screenplay based on the book Shutter Island written by Dennis Lehane, but the draft that was used for the movie of the same name was written by Laeta Kalogridis. [6]
Recent films based on screenplays that Knight has written include The Hundred-Foot Journey directed by Lasse Hallström, based on the book of the same name by Richard C. Morais and starring Helen Mirren, Seventh Son , an adventure story starring Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Djimon Hounsou, Kit Harington and Jason Scott Lee, as well as the film Pawn Sacrifice , based on U.S. chess champion Bobby Fischer, with Tobey Maguire playing Fischer in the film. He also wrote the screenplay of World War Z II. [7]
Knight wrote the script for the 2021 dramedy Locked Down , about a couple (Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor) attempting a high-stakes jewellery heist during the COVID-19 pandemic. [8] Knight later wrote the script for the film Spencer , starring Kristen Stewart as Diana, Princess of Wales. [9]
In March 2023, it was reported that Knight would write the screenplay for an upcoming Star Wars film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, replacing Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson. The film is set to be a continuation to the Star Wars sequel trilogy, focusing on Rey Skywalker's attempts to bring back the Jedi Order. [10] A few days later, it was announced that Knight would be writing the screenplay for a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo for Paramount Pictures, with Robert Downey Jr. eyed for the lead role. [11]
Knight's writing sometimes involves "groups of men who are probably not the easiest people to fit into conventional society." [12]
In addition to his writing, Knight has directed three films: Hummingbird (2013), starring Jason Statham, Locke (2013), starring Tom Hardy, and Serenity (2019) starring Matthew McConaughey, Diane Lane, and Anne Hathaway. Locke won a British Independent Film Award in 2013 for Best Screenplay. Knight has directed several episodes of the TV series for which he also frequently wrote, The Detectives .[ citation needed ]
In 2022, Knight was the co-director of the Opening Ceremony for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, which took place on 28 July 2022.[ citation needed ]
Knight also co-created the TV series game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (along with Mike Whitehill and David Briggs) and also is the creator of the TV series Show do Milhão and All About Me.[ citation needed ]
Knight created the television series Peaky Blinders and has written for TV series including BBC's Commercial Breakdown (with Jimmy Carr), The Detectives, Comedy Playhouse (the episode "Wild Oats" in 1993), Frankie's On..., Auntie's Big Bloomers, Taboo, and Canned Carrott .[ citation needed ]
He created and co-wrote A Christmas Carol , a dark adaptation of the Dickens story for BBC One in the UK and FX in the US, starring Guy Pearce as Scrooge and Andy Serkis as the Ghost of Christmas Past, as well as an adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations starring Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham. It was notable for its ending, which steered markedly from that of Dickens's original. [13]
As of 2024 [update] Knight has been involved in establishing a new television and film studio complex, called Digbeth Loc., [1] [14] in Digbeth, central Birmingham, opening in 2024. [15] The complex would be a home for the band UB40, as well as providing filming facilities for a new Peaky Blinders film, and the BBC drama series This Town . [16]
Knight was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to drama, entertainment and the community in Birmingham. [17]
As of August 2024 [update] Knight is living in Gloucestershire, and is married with seven children. [1]
Knight was a guest on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 on 11 August 2024, selecting George Michael, Bulgarian Folk music, and Harry Lauder, among others. He spoke about a variety of topics, including chess, Charles Dickens, Diana, Princess of Wales, and the origins of the SAS. [1]
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
---|---|---|---|---|
2001 | Gypsy Woman | No | Yes | No |
2002 | Dirty Pretty Things | No | Yes | No |
2006 | Amazing Grace | No | Yes | No |
2007 | Eastern Promises | No | Yes | No |
2013 | Closed Circuit | No | Yes | No |
Hummingbird | Yes | Yes | No | |
Locke | Yes | Yes | No | |
2014 | The Hundred-Foot Journey | No | Yes | No |
Seventh Son | No | Yes | No | |
Pawn Sacrifice | No | Yes | No | |
2015 | Burnt | No | Yes | No |
2016 | Allied | No | Yes | Executive |
2017 | Woman Walks Ahead | No | Yes | No |
November Criminals | No | Yes | Executive | |
2018 | The Girl in the Spider's Web | No | Yes | No |
2019 | Serenity | Yes | Yes | Yes |
2021 | Locked Down | No | Yes | No |
Spencer | No | Yes | Executive | |
2024 | Maria | No | Yes | TBA |
Year | Title | Writer | Executive producer | Creator | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1989 | Commercial Breakdown | Yes | No | No | No | |
1990–1992 | Canned Carrott | Yes | No | No | No | |
1993–1997 | The Detectives | Yes | No | No | Yes | |
1998–present | Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? | Yes | No | Yes | No | Co-created with David Briggs and Mike Whitehill |
2002–2004 | All About Me | Yes | No | Yes | No | |
2013–2022 | Peaky Blinders | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
2017 | Taboo | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Co-created with Tom Hardy and Chips Hardy |
2019–2022 | See | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
2019 | A Christmas Carol | Yes | Yes | No | No | |
2022 | SAS: Rogue Heroes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
2023 | Great Expectations | Yes | Yes | No | No | |
All the Light We Cannot See | Yes | No | Yes | No | Co-developed with Shawn Levy | |
2024 | This Town | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
The Veil | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ||
TBA | A Thousand Blows | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Steven Antin is an American actor, stunt performer, screenwriter, producer, and director.
Frank Romer Pierson was an American screenwriter and film director.
Andrew Ross Breckman is an American screenwriter, comedian, and radio personality. He is the creator and executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning television series Monk on the USA Network, and is co-host of WFMU radio's long-running conceptual comedy program Seven Second Delay. He has written screenplays for a number of comedy films including Sgt. Bilko and Rat Race.
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American screenwriter, comic book writer, and producer. Among his accolades, he received three Primetime Emmy Awards, from twelve nominations. In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Steven E. de Souza is an American screenwriter, producer and director of film and television. He is known for writing several high-profile action films of the 1980s and '90s, notably 48 Hrs., Commando, The Running Man, Die Hard and its first sequel, Hudson Hawk, and Judge Dredd.
Steven Ernest Bernard Zaillian is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for his screenplay Schindler's List (1993) and has earned Oscar nominations for the films Awakenings, Gangs of New York, Moneyball and The Irishman. He was presented with the Distinguished Screenwriter Award at the 2009 Austin Film Festival and the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America in 2011. Zaillian is the founder of Film Rites, a film production company.
Helen Elizabeth McCrory was an English actress. After studying at the Drama Centre London, she made her professional stage debut in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1990. Other theatre roles include playing Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe, Olivia in Twelfth Night, Rosalind in As You Like It in the West End, and Medea in the eponymous play at the Royal National Theatre.
Arthur Carlton Cuse, known as Carlton Cuse, is an American screenwriter, showrunner, producer, and director, best known for the American television series Lost, for which he made the Time list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010.
Danny Brocklehurst is an English screenwriter, playwright, and former journalist. He has won both BAFTA and Royal Television Society writing awards. He was featured in the writers' section of Broadcast magazine's Hot 100 in 2007. His 2024 Netflix drama Fool Me Once is the 6th most successful Netflix show of all time.
Nicholas Austin Pizzolatto is an American author, screenwriter, director, and producer. He is best known for creating the HBO crime drama series True Detective (2014–present).
Hossein Amini is an Iranian-born British screenwriter and film director who has worked as a screenwriter since the early 1990s. He was nominated for numerous awards for the 1997 film The Wings of the Dove, including an Academy Award for Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay. He also won a "Best Adapted Screenplay" award from the Austin Film Critics Association for his screenplay adaptation of Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive (2011), based on the novel by James Sallis. For his directorial debut, he both wrote and directed The Two Faces of January, an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel.
John Orloff is an American screenwriter, television creator, and producer.
Johnny Harris is an English actor, screenwriter, producer and director.
Derek Connolly is an American screenwriter and film producer. He is best known for his collaborations with filmmaker Colin Trevorrow, and has written the films Safety Not Guaranteed (2012), Jurassic World (2015) and its sequels Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022), Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Detective Pikachu (2019). He also co-wrote the original draft of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).
Peaky Blinders is a British period crime drama television series created by Steven Knight. Set in Birmingham, it follows the exploits of the Peaky Blinders crime gang in the direct aftermath of the First World War. The fictional gang is loosely based on a real urban youth gang who were active in the city from the 1880s to the 1910s.
Tom Harper is a British film and television director, producer and writer. He is best known for his work on The Aeronauts,Wild Rose, Peaky Blinders, and the BBC TV mini-series War & Peace.
Locked Down is a 2021 romantic comedy heist film directed by Doug Liman and written by Steven Knight. The film stars Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, with Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, Lucy Boynton, Mark Gatiss, Claes Bang, Ben Stiller, and Ben Kingsley in supporting roles.
Theo Barklem-Biggs is an English television and film actor from London. He has performed both comedic and dramatic roles.
This Town is a 2024 British six-part television series. Written and created for BBC One by Steven Knight and directed by Paul Whittington, the series follows a group of young people in the early 1980s in Birmingham and Coventry. The cast is led by Levi Brown, Jordan Bolger, Ben Rose, and Eve Austin. The series premiered on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on 31 March 2024.
Benjamin Rose is a British actor and musician. He is known for playing a leading role in the 2024 TV drama series This Town.