Cillian Murphy reveals how he perfected his Peaky Blinders accent

Murphy, 45, said he doesn’t ‘share one thing’ with his character on the hit Netflix show

Cillian Murphy has revealed how he mastered a Brummie accent for his lead role as Tommy Shelby on Peaky Blinders.

The 45-year-old actor admitted that he recorded pub goers in Birmingham, together with the show’s creator Steven Knight, to convincingly turn his Cork accent into that of a Peaky Blinder.

In a new interview with Radio Times, Murphy said he doesn’t “share one thing” – including his accent – with the brutal and unforgiving head of the Shelby family.

“I hung out with Steve, and we went to the actual Garrison pub in Birmingham with his Brummie mates,” he said. “And we’re just drinking Guinness there, and they’re singing Birmingham City songs and telling all sorts of stories, and I was recording on my iPhone, and then I took that home, and used it to try and track the accents, you know.”

Murphy said he would then call Knight and leave him voicemails in the accent to “see how close I was to it”.

He also discussed the struggles he experienced while portraying a character with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), explaining that he had to make lifestyle changes to physically transform himself.

“I’m not a very physically imposing person,” he said. “So I have to eat a lot of protein and lift a lot of weights and do all that stuff. So that takes a while, which I hate.”

During his interview, Murphy touched upon the grief that the entire production experienced following the death of Helen McCrory, who played Shelby family matriarch Polly Gray on Peaky Blinders.

McRory died of cancer in April 2021, at the age of 52.

Actor Helen McRory, who played formidable auntie and Shelby family matriarch Polly Gray, died from cancer in April 2021. (SWNS)

“She was a remarkable human being and a remarkable actor. And I feel very privileged to have got to know her so well and to work so closely with her,” Murphy said of his co-star.

Sharing that their scenes together were his “favourites”, he added: “We got into the swing of it where we didn’t seem to need to rehearse or anything; we would just put the two characters up, and they would pop.”

The highly anticipated sixth and final season of the Peaky Blinders is scheduled for release on 27 February.

Additional reporting by Press Association