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.
I was doing two things at once for quite a long time. I was working in television and writing novels.
In the States a lot of Hispanic and black audiences are gravitating towards 'Peaky Blinders.' A mate of went into a bar in Santa Monica and sent me a photo of four blokes dressed as Peakies - they meet every week for a 'Peaky Blinders' evening.
Whenever I went to L.A. the first thing people said in the meeting, no matter what it was about, was how much they loved 'Peakys.' So Hollywood was really going for it which is always a good start. Also Snoop Dogg is a big fan.
There has been a tendency only to deal with a certain social class when it comes to stories more than 100 years ago.
A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it. And then, there are notes and you change it, in the conventional studio system.
In Britain, when the working class are summoned for fiction, it's 'isn't it a shame, isn't it a pity, isn't it awful, the terribly poor things... ' whereas from within, it's nothing like that. It's fantastic, it's glamorous, it's terrible and good the same as it is for everybody.
In terms of the symbolism, I think that if you do it right, writing is a bit like dreaming.
Well directing TV is very time-consuming, so if you are going to direct TV, a season will take a year out of your life.
I never set out to write a script that is 'topical.'
No money has ever been spent on 'Peaky Blinders' in terms of publicity, there's no massive campaign - because it's the BBC you just get the trailers. But what's happened is people have found it for themselves and I think the loyalty is greater when people find than when they're told to watch something.
True stories are always good because they're so odd, and so unlikely. It's always good to have a world that people don't know about - a world that hasn't yet been done. It's like treading on fresh snow. You're the first one there. It always feels good to be dealing with a period of history or a world that no one else has dealt with.
I do lots of projects in film and TV. You have some that are lucky, and some that are unlucky.
I will never unravel the mystery of how a script gets into the hands of certain people.
Manchester's history is cotton and wool. Birmingham's is iron and steel.
In history there's what's written down and there's what actually happened.
