Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has confirmed Irish actor Cillian Murphy will reprise his iconic role as Tommy Shelby for the Peaky Blinders film.
Murphy recently won his first Oscar for his portrayal of J Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan's biopic about the physicist behind the Atomic Bomb.
Murphy, 47, has appeared in plenty of hit films including Nolan-directed hits Batman Begins, Inception and Dunkirk.
However, before Oppenheimer his biggest role was arguably on the small screen as Shelby in historical crime drama Peaky Blinders.
Speaking to BirminghamWorld at the premiere of his new BBC show This Town, Peaky Blinders creator Knight confirmed Murphy would appear in the upcoming film follow-on to the series.
“He is definitely returning for it," Knight commented. "We’re shooting it in September just down the road in Digbeth.”
The sixth and final series of Peaky Blinders was set in 1933, before the outbreak of the Second World War. The movie is set to follow the same characters, some years later.
While it is fictional, the gang is based on a real one that operated in Birmingham, and historical characters such as Winston Churchill and Oswald Mosley are portrayed, so we can expect more of this in the film.
“I have always said that if Knight delivers a script that I know he can deliver, because he is such a phenomenal writer," Murphy recently told the Irish Star. "I’ll be there.”
“If we want to watch 50-year-old Tommy Shelby, I will be there," Murphy added. "Let’s do it.”
