With director Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer now playing in theaters, I recently spoke with screenwriter Steven Knight about the making of their Princess Diana film. While based on real people and actual events, Knight’s script imagines what might have happened during a weekend celebrating the Christmas festivities at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate when Diana decided to leave Prince Charles and the royal family. Featuring one of Kristen Stewart’s best performances, the film has been getting fantastic reviews and I’d be surprised if her work and the film isn’t one of the players come award season.
During the interview, Steven Knight talks about why the making of this film was nothing like his previous Hollywood experiences, the positive reviews, why Diana has stayed in the limelight even so many years after her death, the way he writes screenplays, how little changed from the script to the screen, why the story took place over Christmas, how the ending is always the toughest part for him in the writing process, how they figured out the title, and more. In addition, Knight talks about when he realized Peaky Blinders (which he created) was going to be a huge hit and it has to do with Snoop Dogg.
Read what he had to say below.
COLLIDER: If you could get the financing to make anything you want, what would you make and why?
STEVEN KNIGHT: Oh, wow. That’s a really good question. I wish I knew you were going to ask that question. I don’t know. I’ll answer that the end of the 20 minutes because I’ll think about it.
No problem. You have done so many different things, if someone has never seen anything that you’ve done, what is the first thing you want them to start with?
KNIGHT: Locke and then controversially, Serenity.
I like both of those choices. We’re talking polar opposites. It demonstrates what-
KNIGHT: Absolutely.
It demonstrates what you can do. I’m also a big fan of Apple TV’s See which you created, I know it got renewed for another season. Do you have an idea of how many seasons you’d like it to go for?
KNIGHT: I sort of know how many it is going to go for, but I can’t tell you.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=750&dpr=1.5)
Do you ultimately know where it’s going, where you want it to end?
KNIGHT: Yes. I think everything has a destination in the seed is the whole story and so it does have a destination and I think it’s not a destination in terms of what happens to the world, it’s a destination in terms of what happens to the characters.
When did you realize that Peaky Blinders was going to be this huge hit?
KNIGHT: I got a call from Snoop Dogg, it was probably four and a half, five years ago. I didn’t get a call, my agent got a call from his agent and said, “Snoop Dogg wants to meet you in London.” So obviously you go. I spent an evening in a hotel in Covent Garden with Snoop and his agent and he told me his life story and told me how he recognized his own life in Peaky Blinders. I thought, “Well, if someone from South Central who’s had that life can see something of himself in this, which is very personal to me and set somewhere different at a different time, then it must have some sort of universality.” And that’s been proven times a thousand since then.
What do you think would surprise fans of the series to learn about the making of the show?
KNIGHT: How cheap it is, how small, they would be surprised we don’t have a lot of money to make it, but it looks really expensive.
Jumping into why I actually get to talk to you. What is it about Diana that you think has kept her in the limelight and kept people talking about her all this time?
KNIGHT: I think, because no-one knows, that’s what makes it an interesting subject because I don’t think anybody really knows fundamentally why. They know that it’s true, they know that she has never… It could never become unfashionable. I know that when you’ve passed on you can’t make mistakes so that’s one element to it, but her myth has grown.
Possibly, the nature of her death obviously has an effect, but I like to think that when she was around and had some influence and power, she spent her time trying to reconcile people, bring people together and end division. And maybe as we more and more divided and the barricades get higher and higher, people crave someone who just wanted to make people nice to each other.
You never know how a movie’s going to be received when you’re making it. But this movie particularly, has gotten some phenomenal reviews. What does it mean to you or what’s your reaction to all this critical acclaim?
KNIGHT: It’s great to get critical acclaim and there’s no reasons to suggest it isn’t. I suppose the thing that one has to do is step back and when you get terrible reviews, you have to go, “Well, it’s what I wanted to do. It’s what I liked.” And when you get really good reviews, you have to sort of… I think the worst mistake you could make is to say, “Okay, this went really well. People really like this. I’m to do this again.”
You know that and I think that it’d be a mistake to do it in every sense, but I think it would be a beguiling to say, “Okay, we’ll do another one like this.” Or, “We’ll cover the same territory.” What I would do, is the next thing is to be completely different.
How was the writing process for you on this film compared to say, some of the other things you’ve worked on? I’m just curious about your writing process and what went on behind the scenes?
KNIGHT: Well, the great thing about this project and others, I suppose increasingly I’m able to be in a position where I can have the freedom to sit at the keyboard and do what I want to do. This was a particularly good example of that because it began because Pablo came and said, “Do you want to do something about Diana?” Which is the best possible brief. We talked about not doing a biopic and make sure that it’s a controlled environment, that it’s controlled period of time. Then I just started writing it. I spoke to people who were in the house in question at the time. So I’ve got lots of stepping stones of actual events and stories. Then the job was to put her through the process of those events and try to see everything from her point of view.
But this film, probably moreso than most that I’ve done, is one where you sit at the keyboard and you start writing and then you read it back and you think, “Where did that come from?” A lot of it was just like, it just came and came and came and came quite quickly. I think that you speak to Pablo and to Kristen, it was the same that they… You look back at what you’ve done and you think, “This is just working, it’s just working almost in spite of anything that I’m doing, it’s just coming in one piece.” So the process for me was very quick, it was unrevised, pretty much. And again, in television what you write is what you get back, in film that doesn’t happen so often, but with this as the rushes came back, it was what I’d written. So that’s always very gratifying.
I really enjoyed the aesthetic that Pablo put on screen with some of his camera choices, the music and I’m just curious, how was some of that in the script? Do you ever put in, as a director, ideas for camera or what you’re envisioning and how much is it you’re just presenting the scene?
KNIGHT: Yeah. The way I tend to write direction is to describe it in a way that someone who has nothing to do with the movie business can get it and would understand. So try to establish the mood and also the point of view that it’s from. Obviously when you’re dealing with a director like Pablo who’s so brilliant, then you’re in very safe hands. Because what you’re trying to do is to say, “This is how this should feel. This is prison, this is freedom, this is getting out, this is real.” What you’re trying to do is express what you want the audience to experience.
You mentioned that you talked to people that were actually working there and had firsthand knowledge. Was it tough to locate these people? Is it one of these things where you’re going to your agent or somebody like, “Who do I talk to?” How does that step get connected?
KNIGHT: I did happen to know some people who knew her and therefore the route to finding those people was… It was sort of confidential but relatively simple and so I spoke to people who… in every case, they were people who served and observed. But they didn’t just observe, they also felt a great deal of empathy and I think that what I hope comes across in the film is that below stairs among the staff, there was a great deal of warmth towards her and a real hope that she would be okay.
Yeah, there’s a line in the movie that you mention with that, when she’s in the kitchen.
KNIGHT: Yeah.
I think it’s a good line and it’s a really good scene.
KNIGHT: It’s trying to get across that it’s almost as if she’s entered this world, this odd world from the same place that they know about, they recognize it and they’re rooting for her.
How did you decide when to actually have the movie take place over that little period of time at Christmas?
KNIGHT: The word that I got was that a decision was made by her at a particular Christmas and that it’s always good to set something at a time when a decision is made, because then you’ve got your destination with the whole story and you try where you can to explain why that decision is made, ultimately. So that was the reason for picking that time and that place.
Who do you actually trust for honest feedback when you’re writing? Do you have an inner circle that you send some stuff to?
KNIGHT: No, in script form, I don’t. I’ve got a P.A. called Julie who has been with me for 20 years and she’s always first to read everything and not ever once ever has she ever expressed an opinion. Because I think if ever she did, it would sort of change the whole picture of the working relationship. So the first response usually is whoever I’m writing the film for.
So Pablo then gets the script from you, you mentioned that it didn’t really get revised, but were there any things that you changed once Kristen got involved?
KNIGHT: It was one of those Hollywood projects, it was nothing like a Hollywood project, which was great because that didn’t happen and there were no studio executives on conference calls and there was no restructuring or even rewriting really. For me, a perfect project because what you’re doing is, you do what you do, you hand it to somebody who does what they do brilliantly, they cast an actor who does what she does brilliantly and everybody does what they do. The more I think we could make films like that, the better.
How long did it actually take to write? Is it one of these things where you’re doing it in weeks, is it months? What exactly are the parameters?
KNIGHT: In my experience, anything that’s any good comes quickly, strangely. If it slows down, there’s a reason because it’s not right. It’s like one of the tires is burst and so you’re slowing down somehow. This was quite quick, I would say I was doing probably another thing at the same time, but this would’ve been weeks not months.
What ended up being the toughest part of the script for you, that you felt to get right? Because I’ve spoken to a lot of writers and a lot of directors and they talk about, they always go back to a specific scene that they feel like they need to tweak and work on. I’m curious if you had that in this script?
KNIGHT: The end. For me that always is the toughest part. The end is like that because you’ve almost got to pull off a magic trick at the end. You know the way old acts in vaudeville, they used to stamp their foot and bang their hands and get the round of applause. You’ve got to do that somehow, visually. It’s finding that thing that will round this off in a satisfying way that doesn’t just drop off a cliff. So for me, the end of course. But with this, it was great because the idea all along was to have her happy, so she’s escaped. She’s escaped with her kids and the whole thing’s about food so she goes with her kids to a fast food place and they eat, so that sort of offered itself up as an ending.
Yeah, I love the ending. I figured it was going to be fast food based on the way the movie was going, but I just wasn’t sure which establishment was going to get the business. Was the title always going to be Spencer or were there other options?
KNIGHT: The working title was always Spencer and I think more often, as I’m sure you know, more often than not the working title becomes the title. Because when you start to actually think about it, rather than give something a title because that is what it’s about, when you actually think about all this work and there are people who claim to be able to come up with titles that will increase the box office and all of that. But this was always called Spencer because her maiden name obviously is Spencer, so it’s emphasizing the fact that she is who she always was and goes back to.
I’ll admit that when I heard Kristen Stewart was going to play this role, I wasn’t sure about her. I think she’s a great actor, I just wasn’t sure she could do it, but she totally nails it. What was your reaction when you first heard her name? Did you sort of feel like me or were you immediately like, “Oh, she’s the right one.”?
KNIGHT: I always think with actors, I’ve had so many experiences where I thought, “Really? That person doing that?” And then you think… I remember when Cillian came to Peaky Blinders and he sent a text to me saying, “Remember I’m an actor.” Because he looks nothing like the character he’s going to play and I think that’s the same with Kristen. There is no obvious connection but I think what is the most crucially important thing about that process is, when an actor really grabs the possibility of that role and says, “No, no, no, no, everybody else can go away, this is mine, I want this.” And they know something that no-one else does, they know they can do it, if you’ve got a great actor which she is. So it’s almost that intense sense of ownership at the script reading stage that makes you think, “Okay, this is self-selection.”
How much do you like being involved in the editing room and early cuts on a film like this with Pablo? Or how much is it like, you only want to see it when he has a director’s cut together later in the process?
KNIGHT: Later in the process because I think if you start getting involved in that, it’s because there’s something not going right. And everything was going right and the cut was exactly as we all wanted it to be. I wouldn’t presume to go into the edit suite with a director like Pablo because he knows what he’s doing.
I have to wrap with you but I am curious if you came up with your answer on, if you had the financing to make anything you want, what would you make and why? It generally comes down to if a director has a script they’ve always been wanting to get off the ground.
KNIGHT: Oh, I know, yeah, Go West. There’s a thing called Go West I’ve always wanted to do, which I wrote ages ago, set in a hotel in New York. That doesn’t sound very interesting, does it?
No, no, I was waiting for you to tell me more about it.
KNIGHT: Oh, it’s about a woman who is a refugee from Iraq, actually now it would probably be Syria, who rises through the ranks to run the hotel next to the U.N. and basically becomes someone who starts to influence world politics because this hotel is where all the secrets are revealed.
That is an interesting idea. I say, “Yes.” Like I have a lot of power.
KNIGHT: Okay. So it’s a green light, thank you.
Thank you for talking today.
Read Next
About The Author
Source link
More Stories
Trump admin DHS lawyer begs Minnesota judge to hold her in contempt so she can sleep – We Got This Covered
All 9 Seasons of OG ‘One Tree Hill’ Coming to Netflix Internationally
IRON LUNG May Be Painfully Empty and Completly Lost on Me, But Its Massive Success is Impressive as Hell — GeekTyrant