A Tom Hardy Twist That Was Scrapped

[This story contains major spoilers for Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man.]

A couple weeks before Breaking Bad came to an end in 2013, another impeccably written crime drama premiered across the pond on BBC Two. Like Vince Gilligan’s series, this show also had an unusual title with a towering lead performance at its center. And within a year, a streaming deal with Netflix helped turn it into a global phenomenon just as the streamer had done for Bad midway through its basic-cable run. The show in question was Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders, starring Cillian Murphy.

Of course, the late 2000s Albuquerque, New Mexico where Bryan Cranston’s Walter White built a meth empire is a far cry from the post-World War I Birmingham, England where Murphy’s Tommy Shelby turned the Peaky Blinders street gang into a notorious criminal organization with legitimate financial and political power. But there are still a number of similarities between the two successful drama series that are laced with dark comedy and populated with sympathetic criminals. 

Echoing Gilligan’s El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Knight now has his own sequel movie to his beloved series. Written by the series creator and directed by Tom Harper, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man aims to provide Tommy with the inner peace that’s eluded him since he returned home from his harrowing experience as a tunneler in WWI. The story picks up in 1940, six years after the end of the mothership series. Tommy has secluded himself in his dilapidated countryside mansion to simmer in guilt and write his memoir, all while his estranged son, Duke Shelby (Barry Keoghan), runs the Peaky Blinders with reckless abandon. 

The nihilistic Duke is soon recruited by Nazi Germany to crash the British economy through the distribution of counterfeit currency and effectively decide World War II for the German Reich. Thus, Tommy’s sister, Ada (Sophie Rundle), and Kaulo Chiriklo (Rebecca Ferguson), the twin sister of Duke’s mother, separately implore Tommy to save his son and Gypsy people by extension. Tommy eventually does so by applying his methodical genius to foil the Nazi plan. However, he still catches a couple bullets in the gut from a Nazi agent (Tim Roth’s John Beckett), prompting a dying Tommy to ask Duke to ease his pain once and for all. 

Knight says that he and Murphy always envisioned the film to be the last ride of Tommy Shelby. And for a show that became a fan-engineered sensation after a sluggish start out of the gate, it was important to offer those very fans a chance to feel the emotion of Tommy’s death by way of a theatrical experience. Consistent with most of Netflix’s high-priority films, The Immortal Man received a two-week release in boutique and independent theaters before its March 20 debut on the platform.

“The ending where we say farewell to Tommy, having watched it in a couple of theaters now at premieres and screenings, people really get emotional about it. You can hear them sobbing, and that’s exactly what should happen,” Knight tells The Hollywood Reporter. “That [communal experience] should be our way of saying farewell so that the fans can share that emotion in person and say goodbye to the character that they have obviously really responded to.”

Peaky produced a litany of memorable characters throughout its six seasons, leading fans to wonder who would appear in the movie. Chief among them was Tom Hardy’s fan-favorite character of Alfie Solomons, the Camden Town gang leader and frenemy of Tommy. Murphy and Hardy had a limited amount of interactions across three Christopher Nolan movies — Inception, The Dark Knight Rises and Dunkirk — but Knight gave them numerous show-stopping scenes that still make the rounds on social media. Their fictional relationship was so combative that Tommy actually killed Alfie at the end of Peaky season four, at least until Hardy lobbied Knight to keep him around for seasons five and six. 

Season five revealed that Alfie survived Tommy’s gunshot to the cheek and that he was pretending to be dead still. But what’s notable about their three scenes across the last two seasons is that only Tommy and Alfie interacted with one another. No one else — including the people in Alfie’s employ — actually shared the screen with them. As a result, Knight considered deploying a massive twist for Alfie in The Immortal Man, one that aligns with Tommy’s propensity to interact with the ghosts of his past. For example, the apparition of his first wife, Grace Shelby (Annabelle Wallis), appeared a handful times in season five. 

“I had an idea, which I haven’t really spoken about. Ever since he was shot on the beach at Margate [in season four], you’ve only ever seen Tommy and Alfie together alone,” Knight reveals. “I thought, Maybe [Alfie] appears, and we realize he’s been dead all that time. Now, I nearly did that, and I didn’t do it, but that was a thought.”

Besides Hardy’s Alfie Solomons, the other major question in the lead-up to The Immortal Man involved Paul Anderson’s Arthur Shelby, the unhinged, brutish enforcer who loyally served his brother Tommy and the rest of the Peaky Blinders. While Anderson has dealt with some highly publicized personal problems over the last couple years, Knight confirms that he and his character were never a part of The Immortal Man. Arthur’s function in the story was always tied to Tommy’s guilt-ridden seclusion. He killed his brother in 1938, having become exhausted by his endless volatility. This backstory is depicted through brief flashbacks that obstruct any view of Arthur’s face.

“What I’ll say is that the story determines the cast, and the story was set. I knew that Tommy needed to have done something that he couldn’t forgive himself for,” Knight says. “Therefore, that’s why the plot went in that particular direction. But in terms of Paul, all I’ll say is that he’s a fantastic actor.”

In between Breaking Bad and El Camino, Gilligan co-created Better Call Saul, which was largely  a prequel to Bad. But it did include a sequel storyline that slowly unfolded throughout the series. Knight is now in production on Peaky’s own sequel series set in 1953. He’s forbidden from going into detail at this juncture, but he does confirm that some Immortal Man characters will show up in it, particularly Duke Shelby. (It remains to be seen whether Keoghan will reprise the older version of the character.) “Some of the characters that are in [The Immortal Man] will appear in that. But I’m under strict instructions not to talk about it except to say that it’s happening,” Knight adds.

Below, during a spoiler conversation with THR, Knight also discusses why he left other notable Peaky characters on the sidelines, before addressing his recent work in franchises like Star Wars and James Bond.

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I want to establish how you arrived here. I thought season six of Peaky Blinders was going to be a direct showdown between Tommy (Murphy) and Mosley (Sam Claflin), but it really wasn’t the thrust of the season. Then I thought The Immortal Man was going to be Tommy seeking revenge against Mosley and all the fascists who gaslit him into thinking he was dying in season six. But it doesn’t touch on that at all. Did you just lose interest in the Mosley storyline?

No, the Mosley storyline, for me, is the story of fascism in Britain and Europe. I wanted the movie to be about that, but in a very personal way. Tommy, in the last two [seasons], is someone who has come across something that he can’t countenance, which is the rise of fascism and Mosley and Diana Mitford. These were real people and a real movement within Britain at the time. When we join [The Immortal Man] in 1940, Europe is gone. Europe is now that, and terrible things are happening in Germany. So you’d think, Okay, Tommy Shelby, who has fought so hard against this, will be at the forefront of this fight. But he’s not. 

I wanted to start with the 1940 bombing of Birmingham, a very personal thing for Tommy Shelby. We find him isolated alone and writing a book. Why is he doing that? What has happened to him to make him do that? Then we discover that he’s actually done something terrible that he can’t forgive himself for. So I wanted the film to be about exactly what the series was about. He gets pulled back into the fight against fascism, and it’s also a fight to save his son, Duke [Barry Keoghan]. The [Stephen Graham] character of Hayden Stagg says, “I thought you decided this isn’t your war.” And he says, “It is now.” 

The payoff of what he does is possibly the biggest blow against the rise of fascism. [Spoiler Warning.] In the final scenes of the movie, he blows up the money, and that forged currency story is true. That really happened. The Nazis made 350 million pounds’ worth of counterfeit currency to try and bankrupt and flood the British economy. It was called Operation Bernhard. So I wanted to use that as the catalyst for getting Tommy Shelby to do the right thing and to do a good thing. 

That operation was not a part of the California public school system’s lesson plan.

(Laughs.) It wasn’t in Britain either. I also think it was kept secret [until the late ‘50s]. I’d always wanted to end this movie in the Second World War. The series began at the end of the First World War, and now the movie ends at the beginning of the Second World War. I often try to find secret history, and [Operation Bernhard] was something that was in the back of my mind. And when I started to research it, it was even more extraordinary than I thought. The Bank of England knew that this was happening and withdrew the ten-pound note [£10] during the war. And at the end of the war, they redesigned the currency because they believed there was so much of this counterfeit money already in the economy. It’s about hard cash, and that’s got to be the territory of the Peaky Blinders. So that’s why I wanted it to be the story. 

When Cillian won his Oscar for Oppenheimer a couple years ago, did your budget increase the very next day? 

(Laughs.) Budget increases are very hard to come by, but I’m sure it helped. When he won his Oscar, the next day, L.A. time, he texted me and said, “I can’t wait to get started on Peaky Blinders.” In other words, I’m still here. I’m still a part of this. It was great. 

Casting Barry Keoghan opposite Cillian leads to a very interesting compare and contrast with their parts in Dunkirk. Did they have some laughs about these shared dynamics? 

They did. It’s really funny. There’s even shots from the set of Cillian and Barry laughing, and it’s so unusual to see those two characters laughing. They’re both from Ireland. They’ve had very different lives. But looking at the film now, there’s only one person who could’ve played Tommy Shelby’s son, and that’s Barry. The look doesn’t strike you at first, but when you see them together, you think, Okay, there’s a similarity there. People say lots of stuff about actors —  their inner qualities and their stillness and their strength — but Barry is genuinely so good.

You and Christopher Nolan are like Cillian’s two favorite uncles at this point. 

(Laughs.)

I was always curious if he’d seen Peaky since he’s not exactly a streaming guy. But during Oppenheimer, I heard him tell a story about buying the Peaky box set. Were you aware that he’s joined the fold?

I did not know that, but that is fantastic. That’s made my very long morning very good.

You and Nolan share another nephew named Tom  Hardy. 

(Laughs.) This is quite a family you’re describing. 

That leads me to Alfie Solomons. Perhaps what makes him so compelling is that he’s delivered in small doses, but did you ever talk with Tom about giving Alfie the spinoff treatment? 

No, I never have. I don’t think it would work. He’s so good, and he’s been so great with Alfie. He wouldn’t let Alfie die when I killed him in [season four]. He kept texting, saying, “Alfie’s not dead.” So back he came. But in terms of there being an Alfie Solomon series, no. We did do Taboo, and we’re talking about doing another Taboo. 

I hope that happens. Was Alfie ever in a version of The Immortal Man?

I didn’t do it in the end, but I had an idea, which I haven’t really spoken about. Ever since he was shot on the beach at Margate [in season four], you’ve only ever seen Tommy and Alfie together alone. There’s never been anyone else.

Oh my god!

(Laughs.) I thought, Maybe he appears, and we realize he’s been dead all that time. Now, I nearly did that, and I didn’t do it, but that was a thought. 

[Major spoilers follow.] I did wonder if he was going to appear outside of a particular gypsy wagon.

Yeah. He’s so great to work with, and he’s obviously such a brilliant actor. So I will be working with that “nephew” again.

Was the movie always headed toward the inside of Tommy’s gypsy wagon? 

Always, yes. That was always going to be how he was going to go. I was pleased that the plot conspired so that I could have him lying on a bed of money when he’s going to get burnt. All the way through the series, his goal has been to acquire money for the reason he thinks is good, which is to protect his family. But at the very, very end, it’s all going to go up in smoke, and it’s sort of worthless. 

When you and Cillian first talked about the movie, did he say, “I want to bring an end to him here”? Was that always his preference too?

Yeah, we agreed that it should end with him saying farewell. One of the main reasons we wanted to make a film that would be in theaters was the fans’ energy for the series. It endured because of them. It wasn’t given huge amounts of publicity at the beginning. The reviews were sort of mixed. But fans found it and talked to each other. It then got bigger and bigger and bigger. 

People would come back from holiday in Spain and say, “There’s a bar in Seville that’s called Tommy Shelby.” People would come back from Buenos Aires and say, “There’s a bar called Peaky Blinders.” All over the world, people would respond. You’d walk into a pub, and there’d be a bloke or a builder or a scaffolder who didn’t look like a fan of anything. But then he’d roll up his trouser and show you a tattoo of Tommy Shelby on his leg. There was just this growth of a fan base who communicated with each other virtually. So we wanted to create a film so that they could actually watch this final chapter together in one place. They could communicate with each other in reality and possibly dress for the occasion. 

The ending where we say farewell to Tommy, having watched it in a couple of theaters now at premieres and screenings, people really get emotional about it. People sob. You can hear them sobbing, and that’s exactly what should happen. That [communal experience] should be our way of saying farewell so that the fans can share that emotion in person and say goodbye to the character that they have obviously really responded to. 

Was the day itself emotional? 

Sets can be emotional, but I don’t think that day necessarily was. It wasn’t Cillian’s last day. His last day was on the moors when he sees Ada. Actors can switch on and off, but it’s been quite a journey that we’ve all been on, including Tom Harper, the director. And so to say goodbye to it was emotional. Cillian will say the same thing, but it’s not the end until people have seen it. It’s not the end until the fans or the audience have seen that it’s the end. That’s when I think it gets emotional. So when I first saw it in a cinema with an audience, for me, that was the farewell because you could see other people responding to it.

Tommy took himself out of circulation from 1938 to 1940, but there’s still some story available from 1934 to 1938. Has Netflix broached the subject of filling that missing time period someday? 

No, we are very busy doing this [new 1950s] one. I wouldn’t go backwards. But the response to this film has been so great and the box office is already so good that, who knows?

You’re reportedly jumping 13 years to 1953 for the Peaky sequel series. Does Immortal Man set up any dominos that will fall on that show?

Not really — apart from the characters who we’re going to see in that show. Some of the characters that are in [The Immortal Man] will appear in that. But I’m under strict instructions not to talk about it except to say that it’s happening. [Writer’s Note: An older Duke will be involved, but it’s unclear if Keoghan will play this older version of the character.]

Arthur Shelby. To me, Paul Anderson’s character has always been one of the key ingredients in what made Peaky so successful. I know it’s a very sensitive subject, but was Paul ever involved in this film?

No. What I’ll say is that the story determines the cast, and the story was set. I knew that Tommy needed to have done something that he couldn’t forgive himself for. Therefore, that’s why the plot went in that particular direction. But in terms of Paul, all I’ll say is that he’s a fantastic actor.

Were there any characters you wanted to bring back but couldn’t due to availability or whatever reason?

No, not really. Because it’s a film, not a series, you don’t have the luxury of being so expansive in terms of characters. It’s got to be very focused. So I was very focused on Tommy and Duke as the twin engines of this thing, and there wasn’t really room, to be honest. The thing is, if you bring a character like [Tommy’s second wife, portrayed by Natasha O’Keeffe] Lizzie back, you’ve got to spend time with them. You can’t just gloss over them. So a film is not long enough to encompass all of that.

Is Finn Shelby (Harry Kirton) still alive? 

Yeah, he’s in Liverpool.

You have the ability to write your own stories into production, and yet you’ve been spending a lot of time in major franchises lately where that’s not always a given. You spent a great deal of energy on Star Wars, and that seems to have completely stalled. You’re now on Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming James Bond film. While franchises can be a revolving door of writers, is the temptation of playing with those toys just too much to resist? 

Yeah, I’m not that logical — I suppose that’s the word — about choices. When something I love like Bond comes along, that is bucket list. You just want to do that. I enjoy writing. I enjoy doing things that I wasn’t expecting to be doing a year ago. Some things come along as a surprise, and I tend to try and do stuff that isn’t in my comfort zone. At the moment, I’m working on a game show because it’s different. I like to do different stuff. And then when something comes along that is really challenging, then I like to say yes because I enjoy that process.

Do you know if your two cents will be factored into the casting of the new Bond actor? 

I cannot speak about anything to do with James Bond.

Besides Bond, the game show and all things Peaky, you released another couple shows recently [House of Guinness and A Thousand Blows]. I also read that you have a very large family. How do you remain so prolific and still live a life?

I love it. I love to write. And the way that I tend to write is to just do it. I just start and trust whatever comes — rather than planning it and then writing it up. That actually makes it quite a quick process for me. I get up early and write until I run out of petrol or whatever it is that fuels this thing. Then there’s usually more than half the day left, so it doesn’t feel onerous to me. If it felt onerous, I wouldn’t do it.

Years from now, when you look back on the entire Peaky Blinders experience, what day will you likely recall first? 

It would probably be the first day on [the Peaky Blinders season one] set in Liverpool’s Stanley Dock. It’s a derelict dock of huge proportions. It’s massive. It’s a gigantic and beautiful old building. I’d had this idea for quite a long time to do this, and it’s based on [my own Birmingham] family stories and all of that. As ever, I was absolutely not sure it was going to work. 

I turned up on that day, and the smoke was drifting. Self-evident, meticulous care has been taken over the costumes and the haircuts. There was a commitment. People had really gone 100 percent into this before it had ever been screened. No one was doing this knowing that it was going to be what it became. Everybody could have gone into this believing that it could be a disaster and fall apart, but everybody had gone in 100 percent in every area.

I remember seeing the first couple of takes at the very beginning and thinking, This works. This actually works. There was something about the way these characters looked when they were engaging with each other, even when they were walking across the cobbles. It was different to what had gone before it, and yet it had something about it that felt traditional. 

So that’s the day I thought Peaky Blinders was actually going to work. Leonard Cohen said, “All you need to be a writer is arrogance and inexperience.” And it was a combination of those two things that made me think, This is going to work. And then, bit by bit, it started to work.

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Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is now streaming on Netflix.