Peaky Blinders (TV Program)

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    Cillian Murphy, Oscar Winner and ‘Oppenheimer’ Star: Get to Know His Work

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    “Oppenheimer” wasn’t the first time he’s played a physicist. In “Sunshine,” “28 Days Later” and more, you can get a sense of just how wide his range is.The first thing you notice about Cillian Murphy is his eyes. As a young filmgoer, I clocked them in the historical drama “Girl With a Pearl Earring” (2003), when he was romancing Scarlett Johansson. But over the years I came to find myself more and more taken by the rarity of Murphy’s transmutable talent as he tackled everything from horror movies to comic-book fare to war pictures.Even as he gained popularity as one of Christopher Nolan’s favorite actors and as the star of the television drama “Peaky Blinders,” somehow Murphy still felt underrated. Well, that was until last year, when “Oppenheimer” came out. In recent months more and more people have found themselves captivated by Murphy thanks to his now Oscar-winning performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb and the central force of Nolan’s best picture-winning film.“Oppenheimer” serves as an excellent overview of what Murphy is capable of onscreen — his take on the scientist is alternately seductive, cerebral and tortured. Still, it’s just his most recent triumph. If you’re now looking to expand your knowledge of Murphy’s work, here are some excellent options.2003‘28 Days Later’Stream on SlingIt’s frustrating for many cinephiles that Danny Boyle’s zombie masterpiece “28 Days Later” isn’t more easily available to stream. (Currently, it’s only on Sling.) Not only is this film one of the most haunting depictions of the way society quickly crumbles when faced with an apocalyptic scenario, it also offers a look at Murphy’s breakout moment, wandering through London’s ravaged streets in nothing but ill-fitting scrubs, a large scar across his head. Nolan uses the natural sunken quality of Murphy’s cheeks to great effect in “Oppenheimer,” where his gauntness also conveys a mind that cannot stop racing as he considers all the terrifying outcomes of his deeds. But Boyle employed Murphy’s physicality much earlier, casting him as Jim, a man who wakes up naked in a hospital bed 28 days after the onset of a monstrous virus known as the Rage. Jim is no one special, someone who survived by mere luck, but he wears that like a burden. Early on, you watch his newly revived brain process the horrors he is witnessing. Later, you see him fully embrace the fury this world requires. This is the film that demonstrated why Murphy is the actor to cast when you want someone to play haunted. There’s no one who does it like him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Steven Knight Isn’t Ready for ‘Peaky Blinders’ to End

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      The cult British show’s final season is now on Netflix, but its creator has plans for a spinoff movie and says he wants to follow the Shelby family into the 1940s and ’50s.LONDON — Steven Knight knew something special was happening around “Peaky Blinders,” his TV crime drama, a few years ago, when the rapper Snoop Dogg asked to talk with him.The pair met in a London hotel room, Knight said in a recent interview, and for three hours discussed the show, which is based on the real-life Shelby family that operated in Birmingham, in central England, in the shadow of World War I. “Peaky” reminded the rapper of how he got involved in gang culture in Los Angeles, Knight said.“How the connection occurs between 1920s Birmingham and South Central, I don’t know,” Knight, 62, said. “I think you just get lucky with some projects and it resonates with people.”Since premiering in Britain in 2013, the tumultuous fortunes of the Shelby family, headed by Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), and set against the backdrop of the political and social tumult of the interwar years, has resonated with many.Devotees hold weddings themed around the show’s early-20th-century aesthetic and cut their hair like the characters. The official “Peaky” brand extensions have been diverse, weird and wonderful, including an official cookbook, despite fans noting that Tommy is never seen eating; a Monopoly board game; a virtual reality game; and a dance show which premieres in Britain this year.The tumultuous fortunes of the Shelby family, headed by Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), are set against the backdrop of the political and social tumult of the interwar years in Britain.Robert Viglasky/NetfilxNow, after six seasons, the cultural hit is drawing to a close, its final outing dropping on Netflix on Friday. (The season aired in Britain earlier this year.) While Season 6 is the official conclusion of the show, Knight has trailed a spinoff movie and other projects, framing the final season as “the end of the beginning.”In a recent video interview, he discussed the development of “Peaky,” and what he has planned for the future. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.When did you first have the idea to dramatize the story of the Peaky Blinders?These stories were told to me when I was a kid by my parents because they grew up in Small Heath in Birmingham, and so they sort of experienced that world. When they told me stories, I always thought it would make a great drama.I first thought about doing it as a TV series probably 20 years ago, and I’m really thankful that it didn’t happen then because I don’t think there was the technology to have done it justice. Then I was off writing movies and, when television started to become what it is now, someone said, do you have any television ideas? It was an idea that I had sort of in the bottom drawer.Why did those stories resonate with you as a child, did you see them as heroes?Yes. My dad’s uncles were illegal bookmakers known as the Peaky Blinders, so he was in awe of them as a kid — whenever he saw them he was terrified and impressed, they were heroes to him. He would see them in immaculate clothes with razor blades in their hats and drinking whiskey out of jam jars.And I know those streets, I know the pubs, I know the Garrison pub — the real one — and when I wanted to do “Peaky” I decided to keep the mythology rather than be like, what was it really like?I wanted to keep it as if they were being viewed through the eyes of a kid. The horses are all beautiful. The clothes are all magnificent. I was a big fan of westerns; it’s like a western, and that’s how I wanted to keep it.“My take is that Season 6 is asking the question: Can Tommy Shelby be redeemed?” Knight said.NetflixDo you think the show has changed how Birmingham is viewed? In Britain at least, the city and the accent have often been maligned.Part of the challenge in the beginning was to try and make Birmingham — which was a blank canvas at best before — cool. To give it a story. Liverpool has the Beatles and Manchester has the nightclub scene, Birmingham never really had anything.There was a suggestion in the early days of moving the story to London or another city, and I said no. I think the fact that Birmingham was a blank canvas helped because there were no preconceptions.According to people I know from Birmingham, when they go abroad and they speak, instantly people mention “Peaky Blinders.” And it’s not a bad thing, it’s always good. I think it has given Birmingham an identity that perhaps it didn’t have, purely in the media.The show could easily have been ahistoric, but you weave contemporary social movements and political goings-on throughout the seasons. Why was that important to you?If you’re setting something in the 1920s, if you look at what was really going on historically, it gives you an enormous amount of material to use.I didn’t look at history books because I think they, first of all, don’t really tell the history of the working class anyway, and also they tend to look at trends and patterns that eventually made everything that happened seem inevitable when it wasn’t.If you look at newspapers and wherever you can get word-of-mouth testimony about the way life was, it’s so fascinating. And if you can bring that into the work, it just gives it — even though this is very heightened and mythological — a real base.The show takes place in a similar time frame to “Downton Abbey.” As in that series, British period dramas usually show working-class characters as servants.Servants or figures of fun or whatever. What I wanted to do was have these working-class characters where we’re not looking at them and saying, ‘Isn’t it a shame? Wasn’t it awful? Wasn’t their life so dreadful?’ Their lives are amazing and romantic and tragic.An abiding critique of the show is its portrayal of violent masculinity. What do you think about claims that “Peaky” glorifies violence?I think there’s lots of things going on. First of all, you’re depicting life in the ’20s and ’30s and it was very different — to suggest that people behaved the way they behave now, would be the same as saying they didn’t smoke. But also, the way that I look at it, any act of violence in “Peaky” has a very big consequence. If they get scarred, they stay scarred.There’s a scene in one of the early series where Arthur [a Shelby family member] is in a boxing ring and kills someone because he loses his temper. In the next season, that boy’s mother turns up at the Garrison with a gun and wants to get revenge for what happened. In other words, it’s not like this is parting violence. All violence has a consequence.The show is coming to an end, but you have spoken of spinoffs, including a movie. Why do you want to keep returning to the show’s world?It’s partly to do with the fact that it seems to be going up and not down in terms of audience. And I’m interested in concluding during the Second World War. So the film will be set during that war, and then the film itself will dictate what happens next.But I’m quite interested in keeping that world going into the ’40s and ’50s and just seeing where it goes because as long as there’s an appetite, then why not do it? I probably won’t be writing them all, but the world will be established.“Tommy doesn’t think there’s a point, he doesn’t think there’s a goal, he doesn’t think there’s a destination,” Knight said of the lead character. “He just does these things.”Robert Viglasky/NetflixTommy Shelby is a deeply complicated character. How did you want his story to end?I always imagine that before Episode 1 of Season 1, he put a gun to his and decided, ‘Well, I’m not going to kill myself, I’m just going to do whatever I want.’ There’s a great Francis Bacon quote about how, since life is so meaningless, we might as well be extraordinary. Tommy doesn’t think there’s a point, he doesn’t think there’s a goal, he doesn’t think there’s a destination, he just does these things.Then over the six seasons, he, bit by bit, comes back to life. It’s like something that’s frozen is thawing out, but obviously that process is very painful. My take is that Season 6 is asking the question: Can Tommy Shelby be redeemed? And I think that question is answered in the last 10 minutes. More

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      in Movies

      Hollywood Crosses the Pond

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      Hollywood Crosses the PondEshe Nelson�� Reporting from Liverpool, EnglandMr. Lunt recalls watching a Batman stunt double launch himself off the top of one of the Liver Building’s towers. “It was very, very exciting,” he said. Liverpool is used to being a stand-in for American cities. It is 1920s New York in “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and the Brooklyn docks in “Captain America: The First Avenger.”More than 80 percent of the record amount spent in 2021 on film and high-end TV productions in Britain is from American and other overseas production companies. More

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      in Theater

      How Helen McCrory Shone, Even in a Haze of Mystery

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      She was unforgettable onstage playing seemingly serene women who rippled with restlessness.Selfishly, my first feelings on hearing that the uncanny British actress Helen McCrory had died at 52 were of personal betrayal. We were supposed to have shared a long and fruitful future together, she and I. There’d be me on one side of the footlights and her on the other, as she unpacked the secrets of the human heart with a grace and ruthlessness shared by only a few theater performers in each generation.I never met her, but I knew her — or rather I knew the women she embodied with an intimacy that sometimes seemed like a cruel violation of privacy. When London’s theaters reawakened from their pandemic lockdown, she was supposed to be waiting for me with yet another complete embodiment of a self-surprising life.Ms. McCrory had become world famous for dark and exotic roles onscreen, as the fiercely patrician witch Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies and the terrifying criminal matriarch Polly Gray in the BBC series “Peaky Blinders.” But for me, she was, above all, a bright creature of the stage and in herself a reason to make a theater trip to London.More often than not, she’d be there, portraying women of wit and passion, whose commanding serenity rippled with hints of upheavals to come, masterly performances in masterworks by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Pinter, Ibsen, Rattigan and Euripides. Sometimes, she’d take you to places you thought you never wanted to go, to depths where poise was shattered and pride scraped raw.How grateful, though, I felt at the end of these performances, even after a pitch-bleak “Medea,” at the National Theater in 2014, which she turned into an uncompromising study in the festering nightmare of clinical depression. Granted, I often felt sucker-punched, too, maybe because I hadn’t expected such an ostensibly self-contained person to unravel so completely and convincingly. Then again, that was part of the thrill of watching her.Her “Medea,” also for the National Theater, dared to hit rock bottom before the play had even started.Richard Hubert SmithMost of Ms. McCrory’s fans felt sucker-punched by her death, I imagine. Aside from her family — who include her husband, the actor Damian Lewis, and their two children — few people even knew she had cancer. The announcement of her death was a stealth attack, like that of Nora Ephron (in 2012), who had also managed to keep her final illness a secret.I have great admiration for public figures who are able to take private control of their last days. Still, when I saw on Twitter that Ms. McCrory had died, I yelled “No!,” with a reiterated obscenity, and began angrily pacing the room.Damn it, Ms. McCrory had within her so many more complex, realer-than-life portraits to give us. Imagine what we would have lost if Judi Dench, Maggie Smith or Helen Mirren had died in her early 50s.McCrory, center, with Emily Watson, left, and Simon Russell Beale in “Uncle Vanya.”Stephanie Berger for The New York TimesLike Ms. Mirren, Ms. McCrory, at first glance, exuded a seductive air of mystery. Even in her youth, she had a sphinx’s smile, a husky alto and an often amused, slightly weary gaze, as if she had already seen more than you ever would.In the early 21st century, I saw her as the languorous, restless Yelena in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” a role she was born for (in repertory with a lust-delighted Olivia in “Twelfth Night,” directed by Sam Mendes); as a defiantly sensual Rosalind in “As You Like It” on the West End; and (again perfectly cast) as the enigmatic friend who comes to visit in Harold Pinter’s “Old Times” at the Donmar Warehouse.In those productions, she brought to mind the erotic worldliness of Jeanne Moreau. It was her default persona in those days, and one she could have coasted on for the rest of her career. She brimmed with humor and intelligence, and I could imagine her, in another era, as a muse for the likes of Noël Coward.But Ms. McCrory wanted to dig deeper. And within less than a decade, between 2008 and 2016, she delivered greatness in three full-impact performances that cut to the marrow of ruined and ruinous lives. First came her electrically divided Rebecca West in Ibsen’s “Rosmersholm,” a freethinking “new woman” torn apart by the shackling conventions of a society she could never comfortably inhabit. Then there was her heart-stopping Hester Collyer, an upper-middle-class woman destroyed by sexual reawakening, in Terence Rattigan’s “The Deep Blue Sea.”In between, she dared to be a Medea who had hit bottom before the play even started. In Carrie Cracknell’s unblinkingly harsh production, Ms. McCrory played Euripides’s wronged sorceress as a despair-sodden woman who believed she would never, ever feel better. It was the horrible, dead-end logic of depression that drove this Medea.“Nothing can come between this woman and her misery,” observed the household nanny (played by a young Michaela Coel). But it was Ms. McCrory’s gift to lead us into that illuminating space between a character and her most extreme emotions, and to make us grasp where those feelings come from and how they have taken possession of her.I never failed to experience that flash of revelation watching Ms. McCrory. London is going to seem so much lonelier whenever I return to it. More

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      in Television

      Helen McCrory, British Star of Stage, Film and TV, Dies at 52

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      She was acclaimed for her work on the TV series “Peaky Blinders” and in three Harry Potter movies, but she first gained notice in the London theater.Helen McCrory, the accomplished and versatile British stage and screen actress who played Narcissa Malfoy in three Harry Potter films and the matriarch Polly Gray on the BBC series “Peaky Blinders,” in addition to earning critical plaudits for her stage work, has died at her home in north London. She was 52.Her death, from, cancer, was announced on social media on Friday by her husband, the actor Damian Lewis.Ms. McCrory was a familiar face to London theater audiences and to British television and film viewers well before she won wider recognition in the Harry Potter movies. She began her career in the theater in 1990, straight out of drama school, playing Gwendolen in a production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” in Harrogate, Yorkshire. In 1993, the director Richard Eyre, who was the head of the National Theater, cast her in the leading role in his production of Arthur Wing Pinero’s comic play “Trelawny of the ‘Wells,’” for which she earned glowing reviews.“Helen McCrory, in the title role, perfectly captures Rose’s crossover from a lovelorn ingénue to wounded woman,” Sheridan Morley wrote in The International Herald Tribune.The next year she played Nina in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” at the National Theater, alongside Judi Dench and Bill Nighy, and in 1995 she was named “most promising newcomer” in the Shakespeare Globe Awards for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth in the West End.Ms. McCrory worked steadily in the theater over the next two decades, with notable appearances as Yelena in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” in 2002; as Rosalind in “As You Like It” in 2005 (which earned her an Olivier Award nomination for best actress); as Rebecca West in Ibsen’s “Rosmersholm” in 2008; and as Medea in 2016.“Portrayed with unsettling accessibility and nerves of piano wire by Helen McCrory,” Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, “the Medea of ancient myth has become the sad but scary crazy lady next door, the kind who inspires you to lock up your children.”But as early as 1994, Ms. McCrory was also venturing into film and television work. In 2003 she appeared as Barbara Villiers, the mistress of Charles II, in Joe Wright’s four-part series “Charles II: The Power and the Passion,” and in 2006 she made a cameo appearance as Cherie Blair, the wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair, in Stephen Frears’s “The Queen” — a role she reprised in the 2010 film “The Special Relationship,” written, as was “The Queen,” by Peter Morgan.Ms. McCrory became known to worldwide audiences through her 2009 role as Narcissa Malfoy, the mother of Harry’s nemesis, Draco Malfoy, in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” She played the role again in Parts 1 and 2 of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the final films in the series. (She had in fact been slated for a larger role, as Bellatrix Lestrange, in the earlier “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” but had been forced to withdraw after discovering she was pregnant; Helena Bonham Carter took over.)She was good at playing villains — the evil alien Rosanna Calvierri in an episode of “Doctor Who,” the spiritualist Evelyn Poole in the series “Penny Dreadful,” and, perhaps most notably, Polly Gray, the aunt of the gang boss Tommy Shelby, on the period crime drama “Peaky Blinders,” a role she played for its entire five-season run, from 2013 to 2019.Ms. McCrory with Jason Isaacs, left, and Tom Felton in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” (2011).Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Brothers PicturesHelen Elizabeth McCrory was born on Aug. 17, 1968, in the Paddington neighborhood of London, the eldest of three children. Her father, Iain McCrory, was a diplomat; her mother, Ann (Morgans) McCrory, worked for the National Health Service.During her childhood, her father’s work for the Foreign Service took the family to Tanzania, Norway, Madagascar and Paris.“Dad tells me my first appearance onstage was dancing during an official visit by the French president,” Ms. McCrory said in a 2014 interview with The Times of London. “I’m pretty sure the idea of being an actress came to me around that time. Every evening at the house was like a little concert.”In her teens she was sent back to England, to the Queenswood School for Girls in Hertfordshire. She began to act while there and, after graduating, spent a year traveling around Italy before being accepted at the Drama Center London.Being an actress “was the only thing I wanted to be,” she told The Times of London in 2017, adding that she had been “incredibly lucky” to be quickly given major roles.Ms. McCrory met Mr. Lewis in 2003, when they were both appearing in Joanna Laurens’s “Five Gold Rings” at the Almeida Theater in London. “Damian’s naughty, and I’ve always loved my naughty boys,” she said last year on the BBC 4 radio program “Desert Island Discs.” They had two children, Manon in 2006 and Gulliver in 2007, and married in 2007. Although Mr. Lewis also found fame, on the television series “Homeland” and “Billions,” they maintained a low-key life in London.Ms. McCrory with her husband, the actor Damian Lewis, in London in 2017 after she was named an officer of the Order of the British Empire.Pool photo by Wpa“I’m much happier as I’ve got older,” Ms. McCrory told The Times of London in 2016. “Age has given me nothing but confidence, security and joy.” She added, “To me, ‘Helen McCrory, 47’ means nothing. ‘Helen McCrory, bad housewife and argumentative after a bottle of gin’ would be much more relevant.”In recent years she appeared on TV in leading roles in David Hare’s political drama “Roadkill” and James Graham’s “Quiz” and as the voice of a daemon in “His Dark Materials.”Last year, Ms. McCrory and Mr. Lewis spearheaded a fund-raising effort to provide meals for members of the National Health staff amid the coronavirus pandemic. Their work led to donations of close to £1 million ($1.4 million) to the Feed NHS Scheme. Just a month ago, on March 12, she appeared with Mr. Lewis on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” to discuss the project.Her illness was not widely known, and her death came as a surprise to most. Complete information on survivors, in addition to her husband and children, was not immediately available. More