‘Peaky Blinders’ Season 4: Cillian Murphy Wants Tommy to Gain Back Shelby Family’s Trust, Talks Working on TV Series vs. Film

‘Peaky Blinders’ season 4 may see Tommy fighting to gain back the Shelby family’s trust. He may also find love again. Cillian Murphy, who plays Tommy Shelby in the series, talked working on the television as opposed to working in film. He also explained his character’s transition in the series.

According to The Week, Murphy expressed his desire to turn things around for the incoming season 4. He said, “Everything has changed… I think his family think that he’s betrayed them. It’ll be up to Tommy to demonstrate to them that he hasn’t betrayed them and that he has a bigger plan. The question is what that bigger plan is.”

Season 3’s finale ended in a cliff hanger, with most of the Shelby family put to prison. He added, “Who is he gonna call? What’s gonna happen to the family? Can he ever get that level of trust or love back again?”

It was also speculated that the introduction of Cherrelle Skeete and Esther Smith, two actors performing in ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’, would mean Tommy may be getting new love interests. In season 3, Tommy seemed to be finally settling down to a life of normalcy following the birth of his baby boy and his marriage to Grace.

However, Grace is shot and killed by an assassin at a formal party, leaving Tommy to care for their baby alone. Tommy is seen grieving for most of the series.

Meanwhile, Murphy talked about his character’s evolution as well as working on the popular crime-drama series during an interview with the A.V. Club. When asked about Tommy’s transition into a ruthless gangster, Murphy replied, “Well, I think as the show evolves and grows, it’s necessary for the character to evolve and grow…  I think this is the most under pressure we’ve seen Tommy, although ostensibly it’s the apotheosis of his criminal career… Materially, anyway, but emotionally and psychologically I think it’s the most under pressure that we’ve ever seen him.”

He added, “I think for the first time we’ve seen that he may have bitten off more than he can chew, so we wanted to show that and how the character reacts to all of that.”

Murphy admitted that playing a role in a television series posed its own challenges as opposed to portraying a character in a film. He said that playing a certain role in long-form television would allow an actor to explore a character’s psyche more.

He explained, “You get to really go into great detail, and that’s a gift for an actor… It’s 18 hours now that I’ve played Tommy, and we’re going to do another two seasons so that’s going to be another 12 hours. That’s a lot of television and a lot of time that I’ve lived in that character’s shoes. You feel like you get to explore parts of a character that you never really get to do in any other medium. Certainly not in film or theater. I think that’s what’s attracting a lot of actors to television these days.”

The 40-year old Irish actor has been enjoying a celebrated career since his debut to the acting industry in the 1990s. His most notable work include Danny Boyle’s science-fiction thrillers ’28 Days Later’ and ‘Sunshine’, Christopher Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’ and the sequels that followed, and Ken Loach’s war drama ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’. He earned numerous accolades and nominations including a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his portrayal of a transgender woman on Neil Jordan’s comedy-drama film ‘Breakfast on Pluto’.

‘Peaky Blinders’ is a crime-drama television series based on the real-life exploits of the Peaky Blinders gang who operated in Birmingham, England after World War I. It was created by Steven DeKnight and produced by Caryn Mandabach Productions and Tiger Aspect Productions. BBC greenlit the series for a fourth and fifth season on May 26.