Cillian Murphy reflects on spending 'quarter of lifetime' on Peaky Blinders ahead of new movie

By order of the Peaky Blinders… Cillian Murphy is reflecting on spending a ‘quarter of his lifetime’ with them.

With his starring role on Netflix coming very soon, Steve isn’t the only film fans of the Irishman are waiting for. It might have only been three-and-a-bit years since Peaky Blinders came to an end on TV but plenty of us are still wanting more.

And thankfully, we’ve got the release of The Immortal Man to look forward to (at some unknown point, anyway).

So, that basically means Murphy has been playing the role of Tommy Shelby for 12 years now as he says it’s marked many ‘snapshots’ of his life.

Speaking to LADbible, the actor wasn’t going to give much away about the character in the hotly anticipated Peaky film, but he did look back on his time with him.

It's been over 12 years since we first saw Murphy as Tommy Shelby. (BBC)

When asked about how Shelby has changed with Murphy as an actor over the years, he says: “Because you get older with the character, and… I mean, it's like you play a character and that's a snapshot of you at that time in your life, whatever age you may be. And I've been doing it [acting] almost 30 years, so there's plenty of snapshots.”

Now at 49 years old, Murphy adds: “But with Peaky, it was like 12 years of my life, which I worked out as like a quarter of my life.

“So you get to work very closely with Steve – Steven Knight who wrote the script – so he’s writing for the character, but also for me.”

Being in the role for so long means Murphy has been able to almost explore in real time the ‘young man into middle age, into sort of an older man’.

“Everybody knows it’s [Peaky] not necessarily real life,” he continues, “but I think we’re exploring real life through that kind of, filter.”

Murphy says he’s been the ‘luckiest actor’ to get to go so deeply into the long form.

Murphy's latest role is as Porter's Steve. (Netflix)

“And it’s quite novelistic to have 36 hours of television and to really shine torches into the real recesses of personality,” he adds, although he reckons with Shelby it’s ‘mostly bad’ rather than the good.

While Knight might have written Shelby specifically for Murphy, this upcoming Netflix film sees another of his long-time collaborators writing for him; Max Porter.

Adapted from his novel Shy, Steve follows the titular head teacher at a last-chance reform school in the mid-90s.

While Porter jokes he created the role for Murphy because ‘Tom Cruise was busy’, the writer was interested in this being a ‘challenge’ for him as an actor, ‘having pushed him in that direction a little bit before’.

Warning: The below content contains strong language

“I like working with Cillian, and I think he has an almost limitless capacity for that deeper investigation. I had no idea how that would manifest with Steve, but it turned out, really to be in emotional work. I think his portrayal of someone struggling with addiction issues is astonishing,” he adds, acknowledging responses to the film praising the depiction of ‘high-functioning, brilliant people’ struggling with addiction.

With Porter creating such a challenging role for him in such an intense, moving and powerful film, Murphy says he’s the ‘luckiest man’.

“I'm the luckiest actor to have found these collaborators and to be given the opportunity to play these parts and to really test yourself,” the star says. “That's what you always want to do. And everyone says, it's such a recycled kind of thing to say, but you’ve got to keep testing yourself.”

STEVE will release in select cinemas 19 September and globally on Netflix 3 October.