Cillian Murphy explains why Tommy Shelby always rolls cigarettes on his lips

With the release of the new Peaky Blinders movie, the story of Tommy Shelby is finally coming to an end after almost a decade.

Cillian Murphy has been playing the role since 2013 and, after six seasons and a movie, fans have experienced nearly 40 hours of his performance as Tommy Shelby.

Whether it be his accent, which Cillian learned from friends of Steven Knight in Birmingham, or his slightly unique style of speech, there are so many completely elements to his performance as Tommy.

One however that you may have not even noticed whilst watching is the fact that Tommy Shelby always rolls his cigarettes on his lips throughout Peaky Blinders.

The longer you think about it the more you can clearly picture Tommy rubbing a cigarette across his lips before smoking it and either betraying someone or berating one of his brothers.

Tommy's smoking is a pretty iconic part of his character (BBC)

There is actually a good reason for it, and Cillian Murphy has actually explained it in the past.

Speaking to the BBC Radio Six ahead of the release of season six, Cillian said: “There was this thing where [Tommy] kind of rolls the cigarette on his lips before he lights it and that came from the prop guys. I’d take the cigarette and every time I’d put it in, it would stick to my lips because they’re these fake cigarettes.

"So in order to avoid that I rolled the cigarette on my lips and then it became a Tommy thing. That’s what happens when you play a character for a long time, these things just develop.”

It’s a good thing that Cillian figured out the solution to this too considering the huge amount of fake cigarettes that the Irish actor ended up smoking over the course of the series.

Speaking about the amount he had to smoke for the role, the actor told Birmingham Live: “I don’t smoke but people did smoke all day and night then.

It's been over 13 years since we first saw Murphy as Tommy Shelby. (BBC)

“I use herbal rose things, they’re like my five a day. I asked the prop guys to count how many we use during a series and it’s 3,000.

“The nature of the character is immersive. It’s an incredibly exhausting character to play.

“Tommy is always on, he never seems to sleep or eat. He’s so resourceful and clever and dynamic, all the things I wish I could be.”

The Immortal Man marks the end of Tommy Shelby’s story, with Cillian having spoken to LADbible in the past about how he had spent a ‘quarter of his lifetime’ in the role.

He added that it had been a rollercoaster to spend the last decade playin a ‘young man into middle age, into sort of an older man'.

He added: "It’s quite novelistic to have 36 hours of television and to really shine torches into the real recesses of personality.”

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is available to stream on Netflix now.