Peaky Blinders director reveals bizarre Tom Hardy story behind Alfie Solomons role
Note: This article contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders season 4.
Peaky Blinders' Tom Hardy had a bizarre inspiration for fan-favourite character Alfie Solomons – he thought the cockney was, essentially, a bear.
Yep, it's just the sort of oddball idea you could imagine the barmy gangster coming out with in the show.
In the early stages of making series 2, the Venom actor was visiting the set while they were filming Freddie Thorne's funeral.
Director Colm McCarthy recalled his weird conversation with the actor to the Obsessed With Peaky Blinders podcast ahead of series 5.
He said: "The Tom Hardy thing was mad, that was a mad thing to happen... he wanted to chat to me about what he was thinking of doing and he had this whole conversation about where he was talking about being a bear.
"And he was like, 'I'm like good bear, and then I'm bad bear, and if I get angry bear, it's like scary bear' – this whole thing.
"And it's raining and the crew are standing there looking at me like, 'What is he doing there in this graveyard, under a tree, having this conversation with Tom Hardy about being a bear?'
"And I was like, 'So you want a beard?' and he was like, 'Yeah.' [Laughs] And I was like, 'Cool, that sounds awesome, that sounds wicked.'"
Tom Hardy would likely have been filming his Oscar-nominated role for The Revenant around this time, a film where Leonardo DiCaprio infamously gets mauled by a bear. So maybe Tommy had grizzlies on the brain?
Alfie was shot by Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) in the finale of series 4, but Arthur Shelby actor Paul Anderson, told Digital Spy that Hardy didn't actually want to leave.
He said: "We were unsure... there was a whole thing about whether or not Alfie would live or die, or get shot or not. It was up for debate and discussion.
"I know that Tom didn't want to go. So there was this whole thing."
Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has teased another clash for Tommy Shelby in the form of the far-right politician Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin). Plus he's spoken about a potential role for Stephen Graham in series 6 or 7.
Stephen's Line of Duty co-star Vicky McClure recently revealed that she's failed to land a role in the BBC Brummie crime drama multiple times.
However, Knight has offered some hope, after he said she would be "great" while he was promoting a new Peaky Blinders festival.
Peaky Blinders will move to BBC One when it returns later in 2019.
Obsessed With… Peaky Blinders hosted by Digital Spy's Editor, Laurence Mozafari, is out now and available to listen to on BBC Sounds.
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