Over the past seven years, Peaky Blinders has taken television viewing audiences by storm. This captivating period piece drama is as exciting as it is violent!
As great as it is on the surface, there’s a ton that goes on behind the scenes that more than likely you were completely unaware of. Take a look at these 10+ hidden details fans missed in Peaky Blinders .
1. The thousands upon thousands of cigarettes.
Cillian Murphy spoke about the show’s prolific use of cigarettes , “I asked the prop guys to count how many we use during a series and it’s 3,000.”
Thank goodness Cillian uses herbal prop smokes!
2. The man in black, Tommy Shelby.
If you pay close attention to Tommy’s wardrobe, he is always draped in black. This is more than likely a way of representing Tommy’s inner struggles and turmoil.
His black clothes reflect his dark and disturbed mind.
3. Helen McRory, who plays Polly Gray, based her accent on Ozzy Osbourne.
When asked how she was able to pick up her character’s accent so quickly, Helen had this to say:
‘I sat and watched endless clips of Ozzy Osbourne . My character’s obviously Ozzy in a skirt.’
And Sam Neill did the same thing with Liam Neeson.
Neill explains the delicacy that was necessary to master the Northern Irish accent.
“I enlisted the help of my friends James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson.”
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It clearly did the trick because Neill’s accent is spot-on,
4. Paying homage to *The Godfather*.
When a journalist is gunned down in season five, you can see a bag of fruit spill onto the street:
“That bag was full of oranges , We wanted to bring it back to The Godfather again, without being too obvious about it, because it was that sort of violence.”
5. Michael Gray and John Shelby are brothers in real-life.
That is to say that actors Joe and Finn Cole are brothers. Joe joined the cast back in 2013 and a year later was joined by Finn.
That’s what I call keeping it in the family!
6. The stained glass of Garrison Tavern is the same symbol as Tommy’s regimine.
In an interview, set designer Nicole Northridge had this to say:
“The stained glass is a connection to his regiment. It’s also a reminder of the source of his PTSD, which follows him everywhere.”
7. There’s symbolism behind the white horse painting.
“In Tommy’s office in parliament we have that white horse picture behind him, which is connecting to the fact that Tommy’s mother came back with the white pony in that finale conversation with Charlie, and also to where they started with betting and the race courses.”
8. Steven Knight, the show’s creator, based the series on a story he was told by his father.
“One of the stories that really made me want to write Peaky Blinders is one my dad told me: he said that when he was eight or nine his dad gave him a message on a piece of paper and said “go and deliver this to your uncles”.
Knight’s uncles were The Sheldons .
9. The name *Peaky Blinders* has a most violent origin.
Some historians hold true that “Their chilling nickname was derived from the razor blades carefully stitched into the front of their caps which could be used to blind their victims.”
Ouch.
10. Hell is referenced often and intentionally.
Fire is used in Peaky Blinders as much for effect as it is for symbolic purposes:
“Absolutely, there’s definitely a sense of hell. That’s very deliberate . We didn’t think anyone would notice that!”
11. Tommy’s brass tin has a real-world connection.
The brass tin on Tommy’s desk was a gift given to soldiers during the war in 1914 :
“It would have been something Tommy received when he was miles from anywhere and really, really suffering, and it was an act of love.”
12. Show creator Steven Knight doesn’t watch TV for fear that it might influence his writing.
When asked why he avoids watching TV in an interview, Knight had this to say:
“It’s sort of deliberate in that I don’t really want to be looking at other people’s work because it does affect what you do inevitably, but I don’t really watch them, so I don’t know. “
13. Even the actors are confused by the timeline.
Cillian Murphy recalls that:
“It was an incredibly mind-[expletive]-ing shoot so I got our director Tim Mielants to draw up four A4 sheets which I put up in my trailer about where Tommy was going, where he was at with the Russians at any point.”
14. Jason Statham was nearly cast in the starring role!
Knight and Statham had worked together previously. Knight said of his former star:
“He’s such a good bloke and such a nice bloke, as well as all the stuff that goes with it, he’s a really nice bloke.”
