‘Peaky Blinders’ Creator Steven Knight Talks “Mindblowing” Cast of New Film, ‘House of Guinness,’ Becoming Studio Mogul
Steven Knight has described the cast for his TV film of smash Netflix hit Peaky Blinders, starring Cillian Murphy as Birmingham gangster boss Tommy Shelby, as “mindblowing.”
The film follows a six-season series met with critical acclaim after dropping on the streaming platform, with Oscar winner Murphy, Paul Anderson, Helen McCrory, Tom Hardy, and Joe Cole leading the cast. So far confirmed for the movie, set to start filming soon, are Saltburn‘s Barry Keoghan and Dune‘s Rebecca Ferguson.
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“We’ve announced Rebecca Ferguson, we’ve announced Barry Keoghan, we’ve got some more announcements coming,” Knight, who also revealed he originally wanted to write Peaky Blinders as a novel, told BBC Culture Editor Katie Razzall at The Royal Television Society’s London Convention. He was tight-lipped about the upcoming project, but told the audience: “It’s set in the second world war and it’s really good.”
Knight, who also wrote Maria, Angelina Jolie’s latest film with Pablo Larraín at the helm, spoke candidly about how he long believed HBO show Game of Thrones was a kid’s show as his 10-year-old son kept asking for the box set.
He was confused when a producer asked to cast Aiden Gillen, known for his role as Littlefinger or Petyr Baelish in the fantasy show, who joined the Peaky Blinders gang in 2017. “I had seen clips of dragons,” he said. “A producer said: ‘What about the brothel owner?’ I said, ‘I thought this was a kid’s show?'”
He said of the upcoming House of Guinness series: “It’s about the Guinness family and the amazing people who were the Guinness family starting in 1968, it’s a brilliant cast.”
Knight has built a large film and television studio complex in his native Birmingham called Digbeth Loc., opening this year, which he said he wanted to make a place of “physical comfort” for all those involved.
He said: “As people who work in the industry know it’s physically really difficult to get stuff made, it’s long hours, it’s brutal work. We want to make this environment where people acknowledge that’s the case and they can have leisure. They can have physical comfort and they’re not getting into a car at 2 o’clock in the morning. So everything is on-campus and people feel they can go in and feel they’re in a creative environment with big and small productions.”
“Here’s this beautiful Victorian architecture that’s been standing derelict for 30 years. I’m standing there looking at the rotunda and there’s mature blackberry bushes growing and you just think: ‘We can do something with this.’ No one else wants this great big shed with columns, it’s leaking, but in this industry we do, that’s gold dust to us.”
Does it worry Knight that TV is dominated by more privileged people? “My background is a working-class background, it’s not a flag you have to wave. If you don’t tell the stories of 70% of the population of the country you’re missing at least 70% of the country. If you can get a mini cab in London… I’m pretty sure the story of the driver would be more interesting than the story of the passenger. Not because you’re being nice but because it’s a better story, and that’s what writers should be doing.”
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