Steven Knight

Taboo' certainly isn't a commentary on other types of period drama. It's just a different way of tackling one.

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.

Once upon a time there was a physicality to the business of investigating a serious crime. There were objects, pieces of paper, even good old-fashioned fingerprints. Today it's different. Because all of us are routinely and voluntarily giving the intimate details of our lives to all kinds of people whether we realize it or not.

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.

So many American and international producers want to shoot in the U.K. because of our crew base and tax incentives.

The whole process of filmmaking can be chaotic, but if you can have an enthusiastic cast, you're pretty much there.

When you think 'Peaky Blinders,' when it first began it got mixed reviews and people didn't know what to do with it, and it was like: 'Why is there modern music on this?' So I think whenever you do something different you're going to get that response.

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.

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.

I never map things out in advance. It would be better if I did and more economical in terms of time, but I've found that if you work out a plot line from beginning to end, at the beginning it becomes very rational.

Peaky' is a very personal thing for me because it's based on stories that I was told as a kid by my parents. At the very beginning, I tried to have other writers involved but it just didn't work.

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.