"A great privilege to get to play characters in a long form”: Peaky Blinders stars on long-form storytelling in Peaky Blinders

Peaky Blinders didn't just reinvent period crime drama. Rather, it became a cultural force, and for actors like Helen McCrory and Cillian Murphy, a rare artistic opportunity.

Reflecting on their work in a 2014 conversation with HeyUGuys in a YouTube interview, Murphy recalled the Peaky Blinders experience;

“...A great privilege… to get to play characters in a long form.”

That sense of creative freedom, combined with the show's historical backdrop, helped transform the show into a storytelling landmark.

Bringing the past alive with Peaky Blinders: A duty beyond performance

For McCrory and Murphy, embodying characters in Peaky Blinders came with a deep sense of responsibility. Recreating post-World War 1 Birmingham wasn't simply about capturing a style or an aesthetic. It was about grounding the show in actually lived truths.

Helen McCrory emphasized the weight of this commitment, sharing that both she and Cillian Murphy "researched these [time] periods" to better understand the returning soldiers and the women who waited for them.

Helen studied how working-class women adjusted to power shifts after the war and referenced her grandmother's stories, as well as bone crucifixes passed down from the trenches, adding that the idea of the hardships and difficulties these women went through stayed with her all throughout filming Peaky Blinders.

Murphy chimed in on the interview by stating that the show is "a saga" that needed TV's extended format to have everything churned out properly.

Unlike the constraints of film, where a story must be compressed into 2 hours, Peaky Blinders flourished across 12-hour arcs in a series format. Murphy noted;

“Some stories need television...”

He recognized the show's scale and emotional sprawl as essential to telling Tommy Shelby's journey authentically. The characters weren't static. They grew, evolved, and endured, allowing the actors to explore their arcs in unprecedented depths.

Long-form characters and complex bonds

What stood out most to Murphy and McCrory was how Peaky Blinders allowed them to live with their characters, shaped by time, trauma, and unspoken tensions.

Playing Tommy Shelby across the years gave him the rare chance to grow with this role and learn to be brave as an actor throughout this journey.

Central to that evolution was Tommy's bond with Polly Gray. Murphy says;

“I personally think it’s such a fantastic relationship...”

In the interview. Murphy also praised creator Steven Knight's writing, especially his treatment of women characters, referring to Polly Gray.

Polly, he explained, is a maternal figure to Tommy, despite their closeness in age. He goes on to talk about how the two of them also share a sibling-type relationship. He said:

“They confide in each other a lot, but always there's this sort of push and pull kinda relationship between them..”

McCrory added yet another layer to this interview by saying;

“There’s also the feminine-masculine… a protective nature that Tommy has towards Polly.”

That emotional push-pull made the relationship on the Netflix show feel real, unpredictable, and layered - something only long-form storytelling could fully unravel.

Peaky Blinders wasn't just another TV show. It was an expansive canvas. For McCrory and Murphy, it offered a rare invitation to live inside their characters' worlds and histories. And in that space, something remarkable unfolded: a story that grew in complexity, depth, and resonance with every passing hour.

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