In June 2023, Barry Keoghan texted Cillian Murphy to wish him a happy Father’s Day. The two had worked together six years earlier on the film Dunkirk. “Cillian and Colin [Farrell] are people I admire greatly, and I always keep in touch with them,” says Keoghan. Murphy replied soon after: “Thank you. Would you like to play my son in the Peaky Blinders movie?”
Murphy remembers it a little differently—that he was the one who reached out first (which is also how Tim Roth and Rebecca Ferguson joined the project). But he’s happy to let Keoghan’s version stand.
“That’s a better story!” he says. “And I’d definitely forgotten it was Father’s Day. Maybe no one was paying attention to me at home?”
Either way, Murphy adds, Keoghan was always his first choice to play Duke, the wayward son of Tommy Shelby (Murphy) in the BBC and Netflix drama’s big-screen finale. (The character was first introduced in season six, played by Conrad Khan.)
“Barry’s a firecracker—put a camera on him and suddenly he’s riveting,” Murphy says. “There’s a danger to him … an unpredictability, which I think you need for that character. But also this vulnerability. And vulnerability on screen is a superpower for an actor.”
Peaky Blinders’ sixth season wrapped up in 2022, with Tommy battling Oswald Mosley, navigating the end of Prohibition, avenging his aunt Polly’s murder, grieving his daughter Ruby, and being tricked into believing he was terminally ill. The final scene showed Murphy’s brooding antihero riding off into the mist on a white horse.
The film picks up six years later, in 1940, as Nazi bombs fall on Birmingham. Tommy is isolated in his draughty country mansion, cut off from his family. He tries to write his memoirs but is constantly distracted by his opium pipe and haunting visions of his dead relatives.
His gang is now run by Duke, who is unscrupulous even by criminal standards. Duke is running contraband and has struck a deal with John Beckett, a British Nazi agent played by Tim Roth, to flood the country with counterfeit money and sway the war in Germany’s favor. We first see Keoghan’s character brutally beating a police officer with chilling efficiency.
Today, in a London hotel, the actor is all smiles and eye contact beneath his mop of hair—he’s playing Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes’s upcoming series of Beatles films.
Keoghan is a huge Peaky Blinders fan—he’d even named his own dog Duke before being cast—so he understood the pressure. “I know there’s a wild fanbase and they’ll have expectations for this film,” he says. “So it’s impossible not to feel that. But I was made to feel very welcome. And getting to work with Cillian—what a joy.”
Joy isn’t the word that comes to mind for their first scene together: a fight in a pigsty. Presumably, whatever they were covered in wasn’t real?
“No, it was shit,” says Murphy. “Pigs shit a lot.” He shudders at the memory. “They really do. And we were in it.”
“That was my first day of filming,” Keoghan adds. “I cracked all my knuckles open, too. I remember punching the ground and Cillian saying, ‘Oh man, you don’t have to do that.’ But I wanted to—I needed to rev myself up to go for him. It was a great day!”
Watching Murphy march angrily toward him was the highlight, Keoghan says. “He had become Tommy Shelby. I was like, ‘Wow. I’m in trouble now.’””Where’s Cillian gone?”
Peaky Blinders’ six-season run was a story of growing success and massive cultural impact—and not just in hat sales. It began as a cult favorite with just over 2 million viewers, but at its peak, it was drawing nearly triple that. Three key factors seem to have driven the success of the show, created by Steven Knight—whose work includes films like Dirty Pretty Things and Locke, as well as the Disney+ series A Thousand Blows and the BBC’s SAS: Rogue Heroes. (He also co-created Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.) First, word of mouth; second, its move from BBC Two to BBC One; and third, its acquisition by Netflix in 2014, which made it available to a global audience in 190 countries.
Cillian Murphy believes word of mouth was the main driver. He says that before Peaky Blinders took off, the BBC didn’t promote it much. “The success is entirely fan-generated. It didn’t get any internal advertising on the BBC. I remember sitting down to watch the first episode and the announcer said, ‘Coming up next, Peaky Blinders starring Sillian Murphy…’ and I thought, ‘Oh, fuck this,’ turned off the telly and went to bed.”
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what fans love so much about the show. At its core, it’s a gangster saga with moments of extreme violence, but it’s also a period family drama. When Knight met boxer Oleksandr Usyk, Usyk told him Peaky Blinders is his favorite show because he sees it as an accurate depiction of family life. The appeal of Murphy can’t be overstated, nor that of the ensemble cast, which has included Tom Hardy, Stephen Graham, Paul Anderson, the late Helen McCrory, Adrien Brody, Sam Neill, Aidan Gillen, and Charlotte Riley. And then, of course, there are the hats.
In 2019, the first (and so far only) official Peaky Blinders festival offered “an immersive recreation” of the show to 15,000 attendees, featuring live music, fashion shows, free haircuts, a Gypsy camp, and staged bare-knuckle fights. Cosplay was everywhere. But I also suspected that for many, those clothes had simply become their everyday style.
While much of the series was filmed in Liverpool, Manchester, and parts of Yorkshire, tourism in the West Midlands has flourished since the first episode aired in 2013. Key pilgrimage sites include the Black Country Living Museum (the filming location for Charlie’s yard) and Digbeth Loc in Birmingham—a studio complex founded by Knight where much of the new film was shot.
In the UK, the series is credited with helping “Arthur,” the name of Tommy’s older brother, become one of the most popular boys’ names—it ranked fourth in 2024. Meanwhile, “Ada,” the name of their sister, entered the top 100 for girls in 2018 for the first time since the 1920s and has now climbed to 56th place.
In Afghanistan last year, four men were ordered to report to the Taliban’s department of vice and virtue for dressing as characters from the show. They have since been released, with Saiful Islam Khyber, a spokesperson for the Taliban government, telling the BBC: “Even jeans would have been acceptable, but the values in the Peaky Blinders series are against Afghan culture.”
A division of the Ukrainian national guard is called the Peaky Blinders because of the Peaky-esque baker boy hats they wear. To show his support after hearing about them, Knight sent over 30 new hats and signed one. Cillian Murphy signed another.
For Knight, the moment he realized the show’s reach had shifted significantly was when he got a call from Snoop Dogg’s agent. “He said: ‘Snoop is in London. He wants to meet two people, and you’re one of them.'” For three hours in a hotel bar, the two swapped stories about the parallels between the Peaky Blinders and Snoop’s own background.Peaky Blinders and Snoop Dogg’s time with the Crips street gang in Long Beach, California. Brad Pitt also called Knight, wanting a role in the series, but sadly it never happened.
Once the show ended, Knight and his cast had plenty of work. Murphy won the Best Actor Oscar for Oppenheimer. Knight has just finished the script for the new James Bond movie. (When I ask him about this, it’s the only time he gets quiet. “I honestly can’t say anything about it,” he says. “Not what stage it’s at, whether I’ve finished it, nothing. Let’s just say I’m working on it. I’m loving it and don’t feel any pressure. How could I? If I worry about it, I’m done for.”)
So why revisit Shelby and the gang? It seems like unfinished business—the urge for one last job.
“I’m so proud of the TV series,” says Murphy, “and if you’re going to make a film, the story needs to have a reason for existing.”
Knight agrees but adds that he always imagined Peaky—as everyone involved calls the show—ending on the big screen. (Although the franchise will continue on TV; a new 1950s-set spin-off is now filming.)
The star and writer, along with director Tom Harper, then refined the plot, while Murphy texted actors to bring them on board. After Keoghan came Ferguson, who shares an agent with Murphy. Ferguson says she told her agent, “Just give me a shooting schedule—I’ll turn up, I’ll wing it, see what I can do. I’ll do anything!”
Then came Roth, who contacted Murphy after his Oscar win to say congratulations “and all that nonsense.” Roth proudly says his character is—contrary to expectations—”very reasonable, just trying to end a war by whatever means. The term ‘geography teacher’ came to mind quite often,” he says. “I hated geography, but I liked my teacher.”
In November 2024, I visited the set at Calke Abbey, a National Trust property on the outskirts of Derby, which was standing in for Tommy’s house. It had snowed just days before. You’d think this was a dream for Knight, who had long wanted to shoot Tommy outside in the snow. He says that in each of Peaky’s six seasons, he wrote such a scene, only for producers to downgrade them from snow to rain to save money.
But the real snow was, sadly, the wrong kind, meaning it had to be cleared by the crew and then added back in during post-production.
It wasn’t just the weather causing headaches. Calke Abbey’s Grade I listed status meant strict restrictions on filming. Producer Guy Heeley told me navigating these rules was all part of the fun, though he looked like a man who had had enough of that kind of fun.
The abbey was mid-renovation during filming, which didn’t add to the comfort. “That place was fucking freezing,” is Murphy’s main memory of Derbyshire.
Watching him film a scene at Tommy’s writing desk was extraordinary. Between takes, Murphy stayed in character for what seemed like ages: brooding, repeatedly taking off and putting on his glasses, and aggressively smoking for about 15 minutes as cameras were moved around him. It was mesmerizing.
Returning to the role was “a bit like putting on an old pair of shoes,” he says. “It’s more than just putting on the cap. I always have to spend a few months getting into that mindset, getting into physical shape, and all of that. And there’s always a ton of words…”
Playing Tommy Shelby is like putting on an old pair of shoes. I have to spend a month getting into that mindset.
“It’s been a quarter of my life, Peaky Blinders, so I’m okay with this being it. As for the haircut: I hated it for so long, but then everyone in the world started getting it, so I thought maybe it’s not so bad after all?”
At one point, I wandered into the costume trailer parked in the abbey’s car park.Amid the rows of suits, frock coats, and an ornate leather jacket, I notice a key-coded safe. This, I learn, is where Tommy’s cap is stored when Murphy isn’t wearing it. Now that he no longer needs it, I wonder where it could be? Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is now in cinemas and premieres on Netflix on 20 March.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about the topic framed as questions a real person might ask with clear and direct answers
About the Peaky Blinders Movie Actors
Q Is there really going to be a Peaky Blinders movie
A Yes its officially confirmed Creator Steven Knight has stated that the movie is in development and will serve as a continuation of the TV series
Q Will Cillian Murphy be in the movie
A Yes Cillian Murphy is confirmed to return as Tommy Shelby He has expressed his excitement about continuing the story on the big screen
Q What about Barry Keoghan Is he in it
A While not officially confirmed for the movie yet Barry Keoghan appeared in the final season of the TV series His potential involvement in the film is a popular topic of fan speculation and hope
Q What would Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan actually discuss about filming
A In a hypothetical conversation theyd likely discuss the intense preparation the different pace of filming a movie vs a TV series the physical and emotional demands of their roles and the pressure of meeting fan expectations for the finale
About Snoop Dogg
Q What does Snoop Dogg have to do with Peaky Blinders
A Nothing directly Hes a famous fan of the show Hes been photographed in Peaky Blindersstyle flat caps and has expressed his love for the series in interviews which created a fun unexpected link between the hiphop artist and the British period drama
Q Has Snoop Dogg ever been in a bar brawl
A Not in real life that we know of and certainly not like in Peaky Blinders His public persona is famously laidback However he has played characters involved in violence in movies and music videos
About Bar Brawls
Q Why are bar brawls so common in Peaky Blinders
A They are a staple of the show because they instantly establish the Shelbys territory their willingness to use violence to solve problems and the chaotic workingclass world they operate in Its a visual shorthand for power and conflict
Q How do they film those bar fight scenes safely
A
