Peter Morgan, the man behind historical dramas The Last King Of Scotland and The Queen has spoken about how “history in the end just ends up being everyone’s individual fictions.”
The award-winning screenwriter has had great success with his historical films focusing on well-known figures. Both The Queen and Frost/Nixon received critical acclaim and most recently his film adaptation of The Last King Of Scotland (2006), about the relationship between Idi Amin and his Scottish physician, brought him his third and fourth BAFTA triumphs.
Speaking as part of the 2010 BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters’ Lecture Series he reflected on his past films and said he feels: “History is ever evolving and organic.”
He said: “I think it’s always a mistake to get too rigid about history. When I did Frost/Nixon the people on both sides were so different, their views of what had happened were so different that I kept thinking, ‘is this … which part of this is history? … which history do you want?’ ”
Watch highlights from Morgan’s talk below: