00:00I texted him saying, Happy Father's Day.
00:02Yes.
00:03And he said, would you play my son, Duke, in Peaky Blinders?
00:06And then said, who's this, actually?
00:08Your gypsy son is running the Peaky Blinders like it's 1919 all over again.
00:14I can't help him because I'm not a man anymore.
00:19What was it that you used as kind of your North Star through the development of the film
00:24that made it feel right to tell this additional story?
00:27I think the obvious one was family.
00:29You could hang the story around that, you know?
00:31Then it became a discussion about sort of succession and legacy and, you know, abandonment and guilt
00:39and all of that.
00:39And then it became clear that we were telling a father and son story.
00:43Once we kind of locked into that, Steve Knight is just a genius.
00:45He's an actual genius.
00:47There needed to be foreclosure on this because the character has been sort of taken to the
00:53hearts of people all over the world and it is a global phenomenon.
00:56So with that in mind, without ladling pressure on the script, trying to write something that's
01:01true to the character and try to put him in a place that's brand new so he's feeling a lot
01:06of guilt and he's withdrawn.
01:07And then setting up a set of circumstances that are personal with his son, but also global
01:12with the Second World War, coming back to the world to save his son and to save his country.
01:20And to have those two things happening at the same time felt a very satisfying way of Tommy Shelby
01:25doing something genuinely good.
01:27Actually good, yeah, which he tries to along the way.
01:29Yeah, exactly.
01:30He sets the intention, at least, along the way.
01:32It does get diverted, to be fair.
01:34Yeah, yeah.
01:35I've heard you decided this wasn't your war.
01:39It is now.
01:41I read that Killian wanted both of you for this cast kind of from the very beginning.
01:45How does that add to the pressure of the role?
01:48Is it just add excitement?
01:49Are you like, I'm just happy to be here?
01:51Kind of, what are the thoughts going through your head?
01:53He's done this for so many years and I think it was so important for him to create something
01:59for his fans and the fact that he wanted us and wanted me, it was amazing and I've wanted
02:04to work with him for a long time.
02:06And then it is, it's unsettling walking something new into an environment that is already so set
02:11and so founded and grounded and sort of bring your own little zest to it.
02:16There's always a nerve-wracking element to it.
02:18Yeah, I mean, it's a great invite.
02:20So I've walked into these established, I mean, the director, the sets, but him, you know,
02:29in his peaky world.
02:30As a complete freshman, I just walked in and it was a lovely experience.
02:34Yeah, but he's the one that came to us and offered us a job.
02:37To come in on Peaky Blinders and it be sort of, you know, the capping of it,
02:43I mean, it's just a moment.
02:45It's a moment that you want to be part of, you're very privileged to, you know,
02:49I'm very grateful to be asked.
02:51And I knew before going on set and even filming that, you know, this is going to elevate me
02:57in terms of me as a person, but also as an actor, like getting to work with such incredible people.
03:03By order of the Peaky Blinders.
03:05And there are so many small mannerisms of a Peaky Blinder.
03:10Killian, maybe let's start with you.
03:11If there's something specific that when you do that, you're like, oh, now I'm, I'm in it.
03:15No, it kind of, it kind of evolved over the course of the series, which was like,
03:21we shot it at the end of 2012, which is insane.
03:25He probably wasn't even born or something like that.
03:26No, I was born a year later.
03:28Like he's a decorated war veteran.
03:30So you had to use all the tricks to kind of, to drop the voice a little bit, you know,
03:34in the tailoring of the suit, the silhouette, the cap, the cigarette.
03:39That happened because it used to stick to my lips.
03:41So then it, you began to roll it and yeah, all of that.
03:44And it's, it's the, it's the gift of doing something for a very long time.
03:49You know, you do film and you're in and out.
03:51Even that could be take, could like be three months or something.
03:54There's something that you go back in and out of over the course of a career.
03:59You then, you, you get a bit of confidence with it and you, you get to go in a bit
04:02deeper
04:03and the writer gets a bit more confidence and the filmmakers get a bit more confidence.
04:07So the thing begins to evolve and become richer if you're lucky.
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