Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan on making the Peaky Blinders film

Barry Keoghan says he texted Cillian Murphy on Father’s Day in 2023 to wish him well and was invited to play Tommy Shelby’s wayward son in the Peaky Blinders film. Murphy recalls it the other way round but is happy to let Keoghan’s version stand: “That’s a better story!” Murphy had already settled on Keoghan as his choice for Duke, praising him as “a firecracker” with “a danger … an unpredictability” alongside “this vulnerability.

And vulnerability on screen is a superpower as an actor.” The film moves the story to 1940 as Nazi bombs fall on Birmingham. Tommy has cut himself off from his family, distracted by opium and visions, while Duke runs the gang and has struck a deal with John Beckett to flood the country with counterfeit money and tip the war in Germany’s favour.

The first sequence between Murphy and Keoghan is a brutal pigsty fight; Murphy remembers it plainly: “No, it was shit. Pigs shit a lot.” Keoghan recalls it as his first day of filming: “I cracked all my knuckles open, too.

cillian murphy, barry keoghan, peaky blinders, tommy shelby, duke, birmingham, 1940, wwii, opium, counterfeit money