Snoop Dogg, pigsty fights and the wrong kind of snow: Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan on making the Peaky Blinders movie

The actors and creator Steven Knight discuss the Shelbys’ big-screen swan song, how fans propelled the show to success, and that undercut

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n June 2023, Barry Keoghan texted Cillian Murphy to wish him a happy Father’s Day. The pair had shared the screen six years before, in the film Dunkirk. “Cillian and Colin [Farrell] are people I admire greatly, and always keep in touch with,” says Keoghan. A reply from Murphy pinged back soon after: “Thank you. Would you like to play my son in Peaky Blinders the movie?”

Murphy remembers it a bit differently: that he was the one initiating contact (which is how Tim Roth and Rebecca Ferguson came on board). But he’s happy to let Keoghan’s version be recorded as fact.

“That’s a better story!” he says. “And I’d definitely forgotten it was Father’s Day. Maybe no one was paying attention to me at home?”