Norman Morrill interview

Norman Morrill, creator of TV series Thief (currently running in the UK on Sky One), talks to the WGAw's Dylan Callaghan.

At the very start I said to FX it was going to be a black lead. We all know the challenges with something like that, but it was the story I wanted to tell, and I think it's the story with America right now.

Writers have a lot of clichés in this business like, “I want the city to be a character in the show.” Another one is, “I want to have race without it being racial.” I wanted it to be about the things that are racial without making a diatribe about race. It is what it is. This is America, and you deal with it as it comes. Nick's life is coming apart, but he knows a black man and a white girl in the South going out to dinner draws attention. I don't need to write two paragraphs of dialogue into somebody's mouth to make a point about that.

There's also an article about the show by Fiona Morrow in The Times.