Real reason Cillian Murphy finally got tempted back to play Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders movie

Tommy Shelby riding off into the English countryside at the end of Peaky Blinders season six was a perfect send-off, so here’s why Cillian Murphy returned for The Immortal Man.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man picks up after the events of season six and promises to take the Shelby family story to a whole new level, including new characters, wartime stakes, and, of course, the return of Tommy himself.

Speaking to Deadline, Cillian Murphy said there were loads of chats about how and why the film should happen. He really wanted a good reason to do it. He explained, “It’s been pretty much from 2019–2020 that we’ve been talking about it, going through different versions of the script, working on it, reworking it, and revising it.”

So what actually convinced Cillian Murphy to put on the cap again?

via Netflix

Cillian Murphy explained that the movie had to “justify its existence” for him to even consider it. He said, “For me personally, I really felt that the film needed to justify its existence because I love the ambiguity of the ending of season six that Tommy rode off into the sort of bucolic English hills and it was, ‘What, where’s he gone? Will we ever see him again?’ I felt that was a satisfying ending, actually, for the TV show.”

So, he wasn’t going to come back just for the sake of a paycheck or because someone asked nicely. The story had to make sense. And the film “really needed to match [the show], and, in fact, kind of improve on it.” That’s a pretty high bar, considering how cinematic the series already is.

Most Read

An engagement, baby, marriage and divorce: All that will be exposed at Love Is Blind reunion

Shocking 911 call reveals hour-long highway chase with Britney Spears before DUI arrest

Uh oh! The first Love Island All Stars 2026 couple have already called time on their relationship

And speaking of cinematic, creator Steven Knight had a lot to do with convincing Murphy. Knight was keen to take advantage of the bigger movie budget to expand the story in ways the show couldn’t.

He said, “You can see the car blown up. You don’t have somebody explain that a car has just been blown up. So the money makes a difference. And I do believe that the fact that it’s a feature attracts cast in a different way.”

But there was another, more emotional reason too. Knight really wanted to show the Peaky Blinders during the war. “It’s during the Birmingham Blitz, every night the place was carpet-bombed, and nobody knew if they were going to survive,” he said.

“My mum was around at the time and told me stories about what that was like, just obviously terrifying. And so I wanted to get that energy of the Second World War and throw our people into it, really into it.”

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man has finally released in the cinema today, 6th March. And it’ll stream on Netflix from 20th March.

For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.