Kurt Sutter
Kurt Sutter
Kurt Leon Sutter is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and actor. He worked as a producer, writer, and director on The Shield, and appeared on the show as hitman Margos Dezerian. Sutter is also the creator of Sons of Anarchy on FX; he wrote, produced, and directed the series, as well as played incarcerated club member Otto Delaney. Sutter spent time with members of an outlaw motorcycle club in Northern California as research for Sons of Anarchy. Sutter's wife, actress...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Producer
Date of Birth5 May 1960
CityRahway, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
I navigate through the world with the excitement and determination of a child. That's why I'm an artist. I'd die without an outlet for expression. Unfortunately, more often than not, that childlike energy is the maturity level I bring to many circumstances.
I'm a guy desperately in need of buffers. I have big feelings, big reactions, big emotions. All the things that serve me as an artist, but challenge me as a socially-responsible human being.
I have a loose blueprint of where I want the show to go. I stress, quite frankly to remind myself, that I hold onto that vision very loosely, so that I can be moving towards something, but I don't ever want to feel like I'm in a box that'll stop me from exploring a potential new direction.
I'm a guy who has problems with moderation. All or nothing. Binge and purge. Kill or be killed. Gray is not a color I wear well. I should be dead. I know that. I should not be successful. I know that too. My daily existence is a toss of the coin - one side, fear, the other side, gratitude.
I've always wanted to play with this idea - and I didn't want to leave it to the last season, but I wasn't quite sure when it was going to happen - of putting Jax [sons of Anarchy] at the head of the table and the ripple effect on the guys and the loyalties of it and where people land.
My production team doesn't like not knowing what anything is going to look like, but creatively, that's fun.
I always have a sense of where I want to end each season, emotionally and relationship wise and with the theme, and I'm always able to hit that.
I started doing some more specific research on Wales in that period because I like the idea of being authentic to the territory, and with that came the knowledge that there was this great rebellion that was happening with the Marcher barons and conflict with the king. A lot of it wasn't documented by the English.
I can be arrogant, I can be insufferable.
The lazy blogosphere has given up on journalism and now trolls Twitter for their on-the-record in-depth articles.
Unlike fiction, which you create before you go into production, with reality you kind of create it after everything is produced. The drama and the storytelling is really done in post.
I joke that I learned the essentials of storytelling from Hanna-Barbera, but I pretty much did. That kind of television is what enamored me as a kid, and that's what really got me hooked. You could say that's where it all began.
My wife, Katey Sagal, has transformed herself from a sitcom cartoon to a dramatic powerhouse.
I was really exposed to great old-time literature - the classics, the poetic realists like Strindberg and Ibsen and all those guys. I was really inspired by all those guys. That's when writing became a primary focus.