Steven Knight (born 1959) is a British screenwriter and film director. Knight has written the screenplays for the films Closed Circuit, Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises, and also directed as well as written the films Locke and Hummingbird (a.k.a. Redemption). Knight has also written scripts for numerous British television programmes such as the British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (and is also the series creator, the UK version being the inspiration for the US version), BBC's Commercial Breakdown, The Detectives and others.
Screenplays
Knight is 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. The screenplay was also nominated for several other awards including the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Knight also wrote the screenplay for the 2013 film Closed Circuit, which was directed by John Crowley and which starred Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall.
Knight also 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.
Future films based on screenplays that Knight has written include Seventh Son, an 18th century adventure story starring Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Djimon Hounsou, Kit Harington and Jason Scott Lee, the film The Hundred-Foot Journey directed by Lasse Hallström, based on the book of the same name by Richard C. Morais, and starring Helen Mirren, as well as the film Pawn Sacrifice based on U.S. chess champion Bobby Fischer, with Tobey Maguire playing Fischer in the film. He wrote also the screenplay of World War Z II, who will start shooting in October 2015.
Directing
Knight has also directed two films which he also wrote the screenplays for, Hummingbird (2013) starring Jason Statham and most recently the technically innovative Locke (2014), starring Tom Hardy in a car fielding hands-free phone calls throughout the entire movie. Locke won a British Independent Film Award in 2013 for Best Screenplay. Knight has also directed several episodes of the TV series he frequently wrote for, The Detectives.
TV series
Knight also created the TV series Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in the UK (alongside Mike Whitehill and David Briggs) and also is the creator of the TV series Show do Milhão and All About Me.
Knight has written for TV series in the UK including Peaky Blinders, BBC's Commercial Breakdown (with Jimmy Carr), The Detectives, Comedy Playhouse (the episode "Wild Oats" in 1993), Frankie's On..., Auntie's Big Bloomers, and Canned Carrott.
Filmography
References
External links
- Steven Knight at the Internet Movie Database
- The Making of Locke: An Interview with Writer/Director Steve Knight, Part 1 at PostMovie.net
- The Making of Locke: An Interview with Writer/Director Steve Knight, Part 2 at PostMovie.net
