Steven Knight

by Brian Hickey | Published September 10, 2007

Steven Knight’s screenplays are windows into the places that normally cannot be afforded windows. His Oscar-nominated script for 2002’s Dirty Pretty Things showed us the life of immigrants in London, as well as the tortured world of prostitution and underground organ transplants. 2006’s Amazing Grace was a look at one man’s fight against slavery in 19th century England. His next movie, Eastern Promises, is the story of a midwife who witnesses the death of an immigrant while giving birth. She attempts to track down the girl’s family and instead finds herself deep into the seedy underbelly of organized crime.

Eastern Promises, like all of Knight’s screenplays, attracted quality cast and crew. Naomi Watts stars as the midwife, and Viggo Mortensen as a man within the mob. Other actors that have worked on Knight’s movies include Albert Finney, Michael Gambon, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou.

Directed by David Cronenberg, Eastern Promises arrives in theaters September 14th. After that Knight is working on Emma’s War, a story about a British worker’s interactions with a Sudanese Warlord.