Peaky Blinders creators admitted they initially looked over Cillian Murphy for the part of Thomas Shelby because he is so different in real life.
Series boss and writer Steven Knight revealed he had his heart set on Jason Statham to play Tommy in the hit BBC series before Cork born star Murphy swayed him with a text.
Knight revealed that he had originally envisaged Statham in the role after meetings with both him and Murphy, 44, convinced that Statham, known for his action thriller roles was the right fit due to his physicality.
But Batman Begins star Cillian, who was eventually given the role of the Birmingham gangster in the smash-hit, convinced him otherwise.
“I met them both in LA to talk about the role and opted for Jason,” Knight told Esquire.
“One of the reasons was because physically in the room Jason is Jason.”
He continued: “Cillian, when you meet him, isn’t Tommy, obviously, but I was stupid enough not to understand that.”
Murphy appeared to sense that he wasn’t Knight’s pick for the role, and sent him a text message in a last effort to convince him otherwise.
Looking back at how his decision, and the future of the show changed with one sentence, he told: “He sent me a text saying, ‘Remember, I’m an actor’.”
“Which is absolutely the thing, because he can transform himself. If you meet him in the street he is a totally different human being.”
During the same interview, Knight also revealed that he regretted killing off Aidan Gillen’s character Aberama Gold from the show.
He said: “I should have kept him alive, I could have just wounded him.”
“It’s a funny position where you create these people and then you have to kill them. It’s not nice.”
