Cillian Murphy Talks the End of Peaky Blinders

The sixth and final season of the British gangster drama Peaky Blinders is finally hitting screens in the US this week—the show arrives on Netflix on June 10. And as series comes to a close, star Cillian Murphy is reflecting back on the show's run.

"It feels like the end of something," the Irish actor told The Guardian in a recent interview. "It’s strange talking about it. I don’t have a grasp on it yet. Maybe when it’s done I’ll have some perspective." He added, "It’s the end of 10 years of my life; a big adventure with lots of colleagues and people that you became very close to."

There are, however, things about working on Peaky that he likely won't miss. From the gym sessions to the Birmingham accent to what Murphy estimates to be thousands of herbal cigarettes over the course of each season to portray Peaky Blinders's protagonist Tommy Shelby's constant smoking habit, the work of becoming Tommy is, as he says, "exhausting."

"I do all the work before I arrive on set," he says. "But that method thing doesn’t really make sense to me. It’s about a series of little decisions and processes, which hopefully add up to the performance you want."

While there's still a movie in the works to fully wrap up the story of the Peaky Blinders for good (not to mention an upcoming dance adaptation and a number of possible spin-offs), the end of the show has also come with many goodbyes, the most obvious of which being to actress Helen McCrory, who played Tommy's aunt Polly for most of the show's run, who tragically passed away following a battle with cancer last year at the age of 52.

"Her death was unbelievably sad and difficult," Murphy said. "But I’m always careful when I talk about it. I’m a friend and a colleague, but then you think about Damian [Lewis, McCrory’s husband] and their kids. I don’t own that grief, you know? But she was a remarkable human being and a remarkable actor. It was very hard to make it without her.”

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