Cillian Murphy has spoken about how he's in "awe" of his Peaky Blinders co-star Helen McCrory, who sadly lost her battle with cancer in April.
The much loved and revered actress was well-known for sharing the screen with Cillian as leads in hit BBC series Peaky Blinders.
Helen played matriarch Aunt Polly, with Cillian starring as her nephew Tommy Shelby.
The duo worked together across the first five series of the show since it first aired on the BBC in 2013. The final series is to air later this year or early next, and it isn't yet clear whether or not Helen will appear.
"I was kind of in awe about how she lived her life," Cillian told The Guardian. "The way she balanced her work and her family so beautifully.”
Cillian also called Helen one of the "finest actors" he'd ever worked with. "Any material, any scene," he explained, "she made it special. She could do power and vulnerability, one after the other.
"She was just so cool and fun, and had such compassion for everyone she met."
Peaky Blinders is a period drama series set in Birmingham, and follows the Shelby family, who are associated with crime, in the years after the First World War.
The stories are fictional, but the Shelby family is inspired by a real youth gang from the city that existed from the late-1890s through to the early part of the 20th century.
The series is incredibly popular, and has won numerous awards, including BAFTAs for Best Director: Fiction and Best Photograph and Lighting: Fiction.
There is no air date for the sixth season of the show as it stands, although director Anthony Byrne suggested to Digital Spy that it would be late 2021 or early 2022. "If we did start shooting in January (2021), we wouldn’t finish until May or June and then it’s another 6 months of editing,” he said.
Anthony shared an image on Instagram revealing that the shoot had wrapped at the end of May 2021.
And Peaky Blinders star Star Finn Cole told NME in December 2020: “I’m hoping […] that we can have things ready for you by the end of [2021].”
Season six will be the show's last, and it isn't yet clear how much the plot line will have to be changed to adapt to the sad passing of Helen McCrory.
“[Season five] is about the rise of fascism, nationalism and racism in the ‘30s – and there are huge parallels with what’s happening in the world now. I wanted to make that a major theme of series five and the next series, because we go on into the ‘30s,” creator Steven Knight told NME .
“I just want to explore the appeal of these simple ideas of nationalism that Mosley represented. That’s why we got Sam Claflin because we wanted someone who was really appealing and really attractive.
“The last time this happened, nine years later there was World War Two. It has consequences.”
