The story of Peaky Blinders has been an epic one. On the small screen, it began way back in 2013, as a humble BBC Two drama – and over the course of its six seasons, it became a worldwide smash. Meanwhile, the show itself has covered decades of history, kicking off in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I; now, as creator Steven Knight prepares to unleash cinematic outing Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, nearly two decades have passed since audiences first met Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby: it’s 1940, World War II is underway, and Birmingham is being blitzed.
The intention is to deliver a book-end to this chapter of Peaky Blinders – quite literally. “I hope it feels like the end of a novel,” Knight tells Empire in our world-exclusive Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man issue. “It’s the last few chapters of a long novel, where you get to round it off. And prepare people for what comes next.” While Knight won’t reveal exactly what brings Shelby back to Birmingham (“He gets dragged back in by circumstance,” he teases), Murphy is ready to pick up the flatcap one more time, after Tommy left town in the series finale. “I loved that beautiful ambiguity of him riding off on the horse, and he’s gone, and we don’t know where he’s gone to, but he’s back in the Gypsy world,” says Murphy. “Now here he is existing in whatever way that he can against the backdrop of World War II. That’s very elegant bookmarking of a story.”
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By all accounts, this will be Murphy’s final outing as Tommy Shelby – the recently-announced Peaky Blinders sequel series is set to pick up 10 years after The Immortal Man. For Murphy, that meant one last time playing one of his most iconic roles, all in the wake of his Oscar win for Oppenheimer. “We were on the side of a hill in the Peak District somewhere, in the pissing rain, and we were losing the light. But it was a really emotional scene,” he says of his final shot on The Immortal Man. Then, everyone just drove off. “So it was absolutely, completely underwhelming,” he smiles. In his eyes, Tommy’s story isn’t over until fans get to see it in March. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to process it or think about it until the film comes out, because I believe that a film isn’t finished until people look at it,” he says. Get ready to unfold Shelby’s final chapter – by order of the Peaky Blinders.