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" As a child, I grew up the son of German immigrant parents, so I grew up being teased and called 'Fritz' at school. When I married my wife and went to live in Vienna, I was teased for being a Brit. "

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" I just feel that if I'm English and writing about an American president, I have got to have someone on my side who can help me out when I'm lapsing into lazy or obvious European skepticism. "

Peter Morgan

Lazy

Writing

American

" Movies feel like work, and reading fiction feels like work, whereas reading nonfiction feels like pleasure. "

" For 'Frost/Nixon,' everyone I spoke to told the story their way. Even people in the room tell different versions. There's no one truth about what happened in those interviews, so I feel very relaxed about bringing my imagination to the piece. God knows everyone else has. "

" I've done a lot of work in Hollywood and theatre, but to be honest, the biggest pleasure I've ever got is from the TV single plays I've written. It's a format where you don't mind saying, 'I want to tackle some important themes head on.' "

" I am drawn to characters so full of internal contradictions. Idi Amin was one. I loved writing him. "

" No family is complete without an embarrassing uncle. "

" There's nothing wrong with anybody from any other country having a perspective on the British royal family. It would be interesting. But I just doubt that they would get the dialogue right. "

" I can't relax when I'm watching a biographical drama because it's so close to what it is that I do that I just long for more fiction - so that I can switch off. "

" The minute you become a leader of a country, you go into a very small club. You join that sort of pantheon of other world leaders. "

" I quite like the idea - just as an abstract idea - of 12 people's collective life experience and wisdom being this formidable thing. People say juries can be led - I think 12 people from different backgrounds, different races, different genders, different ages, it's hard to hoodwink. "

" I prefer my writing to do all the talking for me. "

" I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important. "

" There were a couple of things I lost sleep over with the play 'Frost/Nixon,' so I went back and addressed them a bit more in the film. "

" I have a great deal of compassion for those in public life and what we have done to them. "

" There is something fantastically post-modern about David Frost. "

" As any showrunner will tell you, it is crushing work. It is around the clock. It is like a monastic commitment that you make. "

" Generally, I read nonfiction. There's very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy. "

" The films of which I'm most proud I've written are the ones that pivot on forgiveness. "

" I do have an innate understanding of where a story should or shouldn't go, in a way that I don't think can be taught. "

Peter Morgan

Understanding

Story

" Every dramatist will tell you that they know deep down what happened in the course of making that film and to what degree they took steps that were convenient and to what degree they took steps in telling their story that were dishonest. You know in your heart of hearts. "

" I don't think of the crown as this glamorous thing. It's this murderous, bejeweled thing, the crown. "

" Robert Bolt's storytelling is the kind that I grew up with and aspired to. "

Peter Morgan

Storytelling

Kind

" If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable rather than its literal narrative. "

" Some of the things I have written about are a way of connecting with my father - I know he knew who Idi Amin was, and I know he knew who Longford was. And I know he knew who Nixon was, because shortly before he died, I talked to him about Watergate. "

" You can't ask someone to act middle-aged. Someone has to bring their own fatigue to it. "

" I'm not good at fantasy, no. I have been offered stuff, and I can't get my head around it. "

" The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations with filmmakers. "

" There are people who are bound journalistically to a code of ethics that means they can't quote something that isn't sourced, whereas what I do is entirely unsourced. I effectively fictionalise history and yet somehow aim at a greater truth. "

" I'm not a vindictive person. But I do want to shine a light on human frailty and heroism in equal measure. "

" When I started writing the screenplay for 'The Queen,' about the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana, both Stephen Frears, the director, and Andy Harries, the producer, begged me not to put Tony Blair in it. "

Peter Morgan

Queen

Writing