A Writer’s Voice – DeKnight Unleashed

Traces of Steven DeKnight’s formative inspirations are still visible in his work. We asked him to define his writing voice. “It really depends on the story. Coming up through the ranks in TV, I worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Smallville. Buffy and Angel were edgier, and Smallville was more earnest, very… good, sweetheart. I remember when I did Spartacus with executive producers Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi and, Josh Donen, when some of my colleagues saw it, they said, ‘Oh, it’s DeKnight unleashed,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is what I’m really like,” declares Steven.

Sadly, you can’t get to do that kind of material any more. “Everybody wants to play it safe. The good guy has to be a good guy. The bad guy has to be a bad guy. I’m much more interested in those gray moral areas,” he adds.

“That’s what we did with Daredevil where we really wanted Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) to have a reasonable point of view. At some point in these first seasons you say, “You know, he’s not wrong. Maybe he’s going about it in a questionable way, but he’s not wrong?”

“And conversely, we want people to say, ‘I’m not sure I agree with what Matt Murdoch’s (Charlie Cox) doing.’ A lot of times, when the networks and studios are trying to reach as many audience members as possible, they want to file off those rough edges. They want it to be easily digestible. Which to me, is insane because you look at some of the biggest shows like Game of Thrones, Squid Game, Stranger Things. These are not safe by any stretch of the imagination and the audience loves them.”

Main cast of Smallville. Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Television

Steven has also been interested in writing comedy for years, but the industry pegs him as the genre action writer. Ultimately, his writing voice is generated from interesting characters which straddle the moral spectrum. “Part of that is from my playwriting background. I write characters that exist in a gray area where good people will do bad things and bad people will do good things.”

A writer’s voice also evolves over time. Steven’s voice is no different. “This developed a little bit later in my career. But if you specifically look at Spartacus and Daredevil, you’ll see two of the same themes mirrored there, which is basically the inequality between the very rich and the working class.”

“With Spartacus, I often say the modern day parallel was the uber rich have created a slave class of workers  – where the workers can’t stop working or they won’t have healthcare, they won’t have food, and their wages are suppressed to keep them in this constant state of needing to feed the corporate machine. In Daredevil, this was very clear,” says DeKnight.

“Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall) has a whole monologue about the rich people in the shadows who just take and take and take when he’s talking about Fisk. And that idea has s become so much worse than when I was doing Spartacus and Daredevil – this massive gap between the very rich and everybody else. These ideas of social injustice work their way into my work. Sometimes it’s very subtle. Sometimes it’s more overt.”

Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). Photo courtesy of Netflix

“In my early writing days, I was much more interested in the spectacle; being flashy. I think this is a common thing when you first start out. One of my showrunners, early on, when I handed in the script, said, ‘Your dialogue is so flowery, it practically insists upon itself,’ and it was not a compliment.” Perhaps it was Steven’s playwriting background, because eloquent dialogue is everything. “Everything I wrote would have at least one really long monologue.”

DeKnight’s ebullient, stylized, and sometimes self-aware dialogue gradually became less artificial and naturalistic. He leaned more into real and grounded dialogue – but still entertaining. That doesn’t preclude him from appreciating the hyperbolic, character-revealing banter in The Bear and Tarantino movies.

“Films and television shows have to be entertaining. You’ve got to be some kind of clown – dancing around. It can be a heavy drama, but you can still make it entertaining so that people respond and want to watch it.”

The Changing Business

Steven DeKnight paused to ponder because the film and television world have shifted tectonically over the last few decades. A key metric of success today is to be able to support yourself financially with your writing. “When I started, we were on the twenty-two episode a year TV model. If things went reasonably well, you’d work eleven months out of the year. You’d have three to four weeks off. Then you’d come back and start working immediately on the next season of your show.” Generally, a three to five year run on a television show would be standard practice.

“Now, that’s been just absolutely blown up. There’s there’s so much being produced, there’s more opportunity to get on a TV show, but a lot of these shows run for eight to ten episodes. You may be on it for maybe three or four months, and then you’re released and you’ve got to go off and find another job. So, it makes it very difficult to advance and move up the career ladder, especially if you’re coming in as a PA, a writer’s, or show runner’s assistant.” Because the episode count has declined, so too are the opportunities for assistants or freelancers to write an episode and gain writing credits.

“Because showrunners are paid by the produced episode, they are often now working up to eighteen months to produce eight episodes, so their pay is stretched out.”

Streamers generally require all scripts to be submitted before shooting begins and showrunners are expected to correct any script issues because all the writers have all been let go. Furthermore, many writers don’t have the opportunity to experience the full spectrum of the production process such as casting, editing, and production meetings.

“When I was doing Spartacus, by the time we got to the end of the show, the PA, the writer’s assistant, my assistant, and the script coordinator all got to write on the show because I think that’s important. We, as show runners have to train the next generation and give them an opportunity to move up the ranks.”

During the old era of television, DeKnight might sneak in writing a feature script during his downtime, but now having multiple irons in the fire is imperative regardless of career level. “My advice for showrunners is you have to expand out into the non-writing executive IP positions to survive.”

“I’m working with about eight other creatives who are coming up ranks, they have really great projects, some based on IP some are original content. But they need somebody experienced so the studios and networks will see there’s this guy who’s run multiple shows that can give advice and help out.” Having a seasoned showrunner gives the networks piece of mind and Steven DeKnight can help writers climb the career ladder. He considers it his duty.