Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale
Thomas Nigel Knealewas a British screenwriter. He wrote professionally for more than 50 years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay. In 2000, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth18 April 1922
sort thinks turns viewer
You set up a story and it turns inside out and that is, for me, the most exciting sort of story to write. The viewer thinks it's going to be about something and it does the opposite.
book money prize short stories won written
I'd written a book of short stories that had won the Somerset Maugham prize so I was respectable, but there was no money in short story writing.
english-writer ghost haunted people three
Certainly, it isn't a ghost story where people go into a haunted house. There have been two or three made on that basis, but I didn't want to do that.
I'd never seen any television before I started.
aiming except recorded recording
Nothing could be recorded in those days except by aiming a movie camera at the television screen. It was at least another 10 years before they had any kind of recording medium.
balance construct equal horrific humour quantity scene stories
I always put humour into my stories because if you construct a horrific scene of some kind you have to balance that with an equal quantity of humour.
control films original prefer scripts television totally work
I prefer doing original scripts because I totally control the story - it's all mine. Films don't work like that but television does.
future ignorance space
What can there be concerning outer space but ignorance?
thinking ideas judging
The only folk I can judge are people like Woody Allen who I think is a genius, largely because I think he has beaten the system. He has his own company, and his films are all his own ideas. It's his direction, and so it comes out the way he imagined it.
brother silly bigs
Big Brother sounded like a silly stunt and that's what it is.
fans television 80s
I'm in my 80s and not a keen television fan.
honesty should-have stories
All stories should have some honesty and truth in them, otherwise you're just playing about.
stories television would-be
I made a rule for myself that the only television things I would do would be my own stories.
writing attention stories
I wanted to write a story that demanded the viewer's attention.