Steven Knight had to change SAS Rogue Heroes scene from real life because it was too unbelievable
When it comes to making films and shows that adapt real-life events, often times the goal is to take an event and make it seem even more extraordinary.
Whether that be changing the dates of events to make them seem part of one more coherent overall story, removing certain people or adding others, it is incredibly common for writers to fiddle with history a little bit to make things seem more interesting.
But that is not a problem that Steven Knight had when writing SAS Rogue Heroes, however, in actual fact he faced very much the opposite problem.
In an exclusive interview with LADbible, the creator of Peaky Blinders and of course, SAS Rogue Heroes, spoke about how the real-life story is so unbelievable they had to change it.
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The BBC show, which has recently returned for a second season, follows the (mostly) true story of how the SAS was created during World War 2.
Written by Steven Knight and starring Connor Swindells, Jack O’Connell, Sofia Boutella, and Dominic West, the show received a perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes for season one, as well as an average of 8.0 on IMDb.
The second season picks up with the SAS reeling from the capture of Swindells' David Stirling.
Knight revealed, however, that one moment from season one had to be changed from the real life version of events in order for viewers to actually believe what they were seeing.
In an exclusive interview alongside O’Connell and Swindells, he said: “I think there's a good story that indicates a lot of stuff about how you have to deal with the truth.
“In series one, I had a scene where David Sterling (played by Swindells) threw a fake hand grenade onto a snooker tape in order to get the other people to give them access to the snooker tape.
"In reality, it was a real hand grenade. If you did that, you'd sort of lose empathy with the character, because that's just ridiculous.
"It was actually a real hand grenade, so everybody did have to run, like to get away.”
When asked how he makes decisions about knowing what to cut and change from real life, Knight said: “Well, in this case, with SAS, it's the opposite to the normal process.
"You have to take what really happened and sometimes take it back, from what really happened, because people would go ‘that's mad’, or they would think the character had gone too far.
“So there are occasions when I bought it back, and that’s true with Paddy (Mayne, played by O’Connell), the stories of his exploits are quite hair raising.”
When asked how he would pitch the show to anyone who hasn’t seen it ahead of the second season’s release, Knight went on to say: “It's a story of renegades and rebels who, had there not been a war, their lives would have been chaotic, and they would have been outside of society.
“War found them, brought them together, and together, they saved the world from fascism.”
SAS Rogue Heroes series one and two are available now on BBC iPlayer
Topics: TV and Film
Michael Slavin