Section:GDN 12 PaGe:9 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 16:52 cYanmaGentaYellowblac

• The Guardian
  Thursday 8 August 2019 9

brought him in for Dunkirk , where

he played a shell-shocked soldier ,

desperately looking for a way out.

But Blinders has had a cultural

impact that goes beyond any of those

projects. For Murphy, that infl uence

can be measured on the high street.

“When something has an infl uence

on fashion, that’s the most visual

message you get back that there’s an

impact,” says Murphy. So what does

he think of the sartorial style? “Every

man looks good in a three-piece suit

... it’s far better than a shell suit .”

But it’s not all suits and haircuts.

Peaky Blinders is after all about

gangsters – incredibly violent ones.

For a show that’s as bellicose as it is

Brumm ie, there has understandably

been strong criticism of its

on-screen aggression. In the fi rst

series there is a prolonged gang

scrap that is drenched in blood.

The male characters usually deal

with their post-trenches PTSD

(many of them have fought in the

fi rst world war) in one of three

ways: fi ghting, paying for sex or

drinking. Female characters are

often strong and defi ant – such

as Helen McCrory’s Polly – but

when Tommy steps on the toes

of a London rival in the second

season, his sister is threatened with

rape. That kind of writing has led

some academics to claim it uses

psychological trauma as a way to

justify the glorifi cation of some

elements of British lad culture and

even nationalism. George Sandra

Larke-Walsh , of the University of

North Texas, argues that “in the

current socio-political environment,

and associated concerns about the

prevalence of toxic masculinity,

such presentations no longer feel

safely confi ned to fantasy”.

What does its star think of it all?

“Well, I’m not British, fi rst of all,”

says Murphy, shifting tone and

shutting down. Of course not, but

as the star of Peaky Blinders, does

he think the show goes too far?

“Everyone is entitled to their own

opinion. If people want to read it

that way, fi ne. Steven [Knight] is a

better man to answer that.” Sophie

Rundle, Joe Cole, Sam Neill, Tom

Hardy and Adrien Brody all gave the

show a prestige feel, but there’s no

doubt that this is Murphy’s vehicle.

Besides, Murphy is a producer on the

show now; it’s natural to expect him

to have an informed opinion. “In my

own reading of PTSD – it was never

an excuse to behave aggressively, it

manifests in many diff erent ways,”

he says, getting more animated.

“I don’t believe anything should

be gratuitous. We’ve always talked

about the re being consequences of

violence – I hope that it is made to

look ugly and makes you fl inch or

turn away. We are working within

the limitations of the gangster genre

and things are heightened, and that

is part of its appeal, so I suppose

it’s balancing that. You see the

psychological trauma that Tommy

suff ers throughout the new series,

particularly.”

Perhaps the prickliness around

the question of violence comes from

what the show is trying to evolve

into. The fi fth season sees the Shelbys

coming to terms with a rising tide of

fascism around Europe in the buildup

look at what happened with Mos ley

you can hold a mirror up to what

is happening now and it’s a more

elegant way of doing it.”

Murphy has had his own brush

with a contemporary issue: the

#MeToo movement. He recently

fi lmed Anna , another assassin

thriller directed by Luc Besson, who

was accused of misconduct, rape and

sexual assault by multiple women.

The case has now been dropped by

French prosecutors , but what did

Murphy think when he heard the

news? “The fi rst I heard of it was a

year after we had fi nished,” he says.

“I haven’t seen the fi lm, I don’t know

anything about it. It’s sad. You go into

a project with all the best intentions

and then that stuff comes out and

you’re shocked and saddened, and

you just have to let it play out and

be fully supportive of women and

anyone who is in that situation.”

Murphy has also been tipped as

a potential new Bond. “The thing

about it is, if you say anything about

Bond, it becomes the headline,

right?” he says , not inaccurately.

“There are two things I’ll say about

that. Firstly, there’s a whole other

industry which is completely

separate from the fi lm side of things,

and that’s the bookies. The second

thing I’d say is that I think it should

be a woman, which rules me out.”

Murphy moved back to Ireland

four years ago after 14 years in

London. The move wasn’t fuelled

by Brexit, he says, but he is glad to

be living in Dublin on a “very liberal

island that is an outlier” at the

moment. When Brexit does come

up, the anger is clear. “The Good

Friday agreement was predicated

on there not being a border and to

think that you can hold Ireland to

ransom, you can’t ...” Murphy tails

I really don’t

identify with

Tommy. He’s a

total stranger

to me. He’s

relentless

ook ugly’

to the second world war; Oswald

Mosley is in the ascendant. Murphy

says it’s a response to the current

rising tide of populism around the

world. “Without a doubt. You can

fi nd Mosley’s speeches online. It’s the

playbook for populism: make Britain

great again, he says that. False news

etc. He was a fascinating challenge

for Tommy, because he sees that it’s

starting all over again, in terms of

world confl ict.”

D oes Murphy

think a show like Peaky Blinders

should have an underlying message?

Should it comment on contemporary

Britain? “I think it’s more powerful

if you do it through the prism of

history. It’s hard to make a fi lm about

Brexit or about Trump because we’re

living it,” says Murphy, who also

starred in Ken Loach’s The Wind

That Shakes the Barley , a fi lm about

the early IRA that was read by many

as an indictment of US involvement

in Afghanistan and Iraq. “If you

Murphy as

Tommy Shelby

in Peaky

Blinders

inspired by a real-life gang who had

become a part of Brummie folklore.

“We didn’t know if the second series

would come, and it was the second

one when it really started to become

a bit zeitgeisty, but you never

know. When something becomes

successful you never know how or

why – it’s by osmosis.”

There has been a natural fl ow to

Murphy’s career too. After getting

the role in Disco Pigs, he toured

with it worldwide for two years and

starred in the fi lm version. That

led to being cast in Danny Boyle’s

zombie hit 28 Days Later in 2002,

before Murphy started a director-

actor relationship with Christopher

Nolan, who cast him as Christian

Bale’s psychotic nemesis, the

Scarecrow, in his Batman trilogy , and

Murphy in the

fi lm version

of Disco Pigs

in 2001

off , then starts again. “Listen, if you

and I are in a club and there are 28

members of the club and I decided to

leave, why would I get preferential

treatment? Doesn’t make any sense.”

There’s another brief pause. “And if

Ireland is a member of that club and

me leaving undermines their whole

set-up and the peace they have, it

doesn’t make any sense, and it’s not

equitable or fair and it’s because the

whole thing was sold on a bunch of

misinformation.”

For Murphy, Brexit was fl awed

from the outset. “It was a binary

choice. There’s no nuance, you can’t

put any of that into a referendum,”

he says. “You can say, ‘yes, we’ll

leave the EU’, but no one knew

how.” Get Murphy on a subject he is

passionate about and you get a fl ash

of Tommy Shelby. Not the searing

menace or the much-copied haircut,

but the more human side who

justifi es his actions for the welfare

of his family. “I really don’t identify

with him. He’s a total stranger to

me, but he’s the only character

I’ve returned to in my career,” says

Murphy. “He is a relentless character

• he never sleeps, he never eats – his
  ambition is limitless. So you need to
  be able to embody that.”
  He says it takes him two months to
  “shake off ” Tommy. His hair grows
  back, he goes away with his family
  and things slowly return to normal.
  But there is a price to be paid. “Ask
  any actor – if you do something
  well, there’s inevitably some sort of
  exchange. It’s not a methody thing,
  it’s not a conscious thing,” he says.
  “I could never go on to another
  character – fi rstly, because you’ve
  got that mad haircut, but because I
  need time to decompress because
  I’m nothing like him. I’m like his
  cowardly brother.”

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