The Peaky Blinders cast break down the huge role Polly has in the film The Immortal Man

There’s a big reason why Polly doesn’t directly appear in the film Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. The actor Helen McCrory sadly died. However, Polly is still an integral part of the film. The cast of Peaky Blinders have broken down what role Polly plays in The Immortal Man.

Why wasn’t Polly in the film Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man?

The actor Helen McCrory sadly died from breast cancer on 16th April 2021, before season six of Peaky Blinders was filmed. Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, chose not to recast Polly. Instead, he changed the plot of the show so that her character Polly also dies.

He shared with Entertainment Weekly: “The idea that Polly’s alive but she’s gone to America or something wasn’t right. We wanted to pay tribute to the character and hopefully the actor at the same time, so we wanted that to be part of the show. I think Helen would’ve wanted us to continue with the influence of Polly. She is still a very strong influence on Tommy, and therefore the whole thing. Her death is a catalyst for a lot of stuff that happens.”

In the first episode of season six, we learned the IRA killed Polly off-screen as retribution for Tommy trying to kill Oswald Mosley. The show included a memorial for Polly. She still features in flashback scenes in season six, using archive footage which Helen McCrory filmed before she died.

A painting of Polly within season six of Peaky Blinders

Polly was still an integral part of the Peaky Blinders film

Steven Knight told the Radio Times: “The death of the human being is the tragedy. The death of the character is something you can deal with, and hopefully we dealt with it in a suitable way.

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Apparently, the character of Polly “absolutely” stays in the Shelby family’s minds whenever they make a big decision. Steven Knight continued: “Helen was so brilliant. When anything happened in the rest of the series, I wanted people to think, ‘What would Polly say?’ It’s like a family when someone passes away, their opinion remains in the house. Polly’s opinion is going to last.”

Throughout the film, Tommy is wary of the new character Kaulo. This is because she is associated with blackbirds, and Polly once warned Tommy that a blackbird would be a sign of his death.

Cillian Murphy sees Kaulo as echoing Polly. “I think they would’ve gotten on well,” he said to ScreenRant, “they were very much in the same tradition.”

Kaulo in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man
(Image via Netflix)

The actor Rebecca Ferguson has explained that her character Kaulo is in many ways a tribute to Polly.  She told ScreenRant: “The moment I read the line that Tommy says, ‘You never thought that a bird was going to fly in,’ he compared it to saying, ‘I didn’t think that there was going to be another person like Polly, but behold, here she is.’ With that came the compliments, but also there’s a sizzle of understatement, of power, of the unpredictability.”

Rebecca Ferguson continued: “[Polly] was so phenomenal, and I think she represented so much that was important to be able to weigh up this sort of gritty texture of the characters of the men, and she just held it steady. She was the matriarch. I loved the dynamic between Tommy and her. It was always the unsaid. I think that definitely, I think subconsciously, was there. And not a homage, but there’s something… I could never be what she did, ever. But if you can just hold a percentage of it, I think it’s important for this film.”

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