Steven Knight has described the cast for his TV film of smash Netflix hit Peaky Blinders, starring Cillian Murphy as Birmingham gangster boss Tommy Shelby, as mindblowing.

The film follows a six-season series met with critical acclaim after dropping on the streaming platform, with Oscar winner Murphy, Paul Anderson, Helen McCrory, Tom Hardy, and Joe Cole leading the cast. So far confirmed for the movie, set to start filming soon, are Saltburns Barry Keoghan and Dunes Rebecca Ferguson.

Weve announced Rebecca Ferguson, weve announced Barry Keoghan, weve got some more announcements coming, Knight, who also revealed he originally wanted to write Peaky Blinders as a novel, told BBC Culture Editor Katie Razzall at The Royal Television Societys London Convention. He was tight-lipped about the upcoming project, but told the audience: Its set in the second world war and its really good. Knight, who also wrote Maria, Angelina Jolies latest film with Pablo Larrans at the helm, spoke candidly about how he long believed HBO show Game of Thrones was a kids show as his 10-year-old son kept asking for the box set.

He was confused when a producer asked to cast Aiden Gillen, known for his role as Littlefinger or Petyr Baelish in the fantasy show, who joined the Peaky Blinders gang in 2017. I had seen clips of dragons, he said. A producer said: What about the brothel owner? I said, I thought this was a kids show?'

He said of the upcoming House of Guinness series: Its about the Guinness family and the amazing people who were the Guinness family starting in 1968, its a brilliant cast.

Knight has built a large film and television studio complex in his nativeBirminghamcalledDigbeth Loc., opening this year, which he said he wanted to make a place of physical comfort for all those involved.

He said: As people who work in the industry know its physically really difficult to get stuff made, its long hours, its brutal work. We want to make this environment where people acknowledge thats the case and they can have leisure. They can have physical comfort and theyre not getting into a car at 2 oclock in the morning. So everything is on-campus and people feel they can go in and feel theyre in a creative environment with big and small productions.

Heres this beautiful Victorian architecture thats been standing derelict for 30 years. Im standing there looking at the rotunda and theres mature blackberry bushes growing and you just think: We can do something with this. No one else wants this great big shed with columns, its leaking, but in this industry we do, thats gold dust to us.

Does it worry Knight that TV is dominated by more privileged people? My background is a working-class background, its not a flag you have to wave. If you dont tell the stories of 70% of the population of the country youre missing at least 70% of the country. If you can get a mini cab in London Im pretty sure the story of the driver would be more interesting than the story of the passenger. Not because youre being nice but because its a better story, and thats what writers should be doing.