♪ Hey U Guys ♪
(lively music)
- [Interviewer] Is it liberating to explore your characters
more fully in the second season?
You obviously got to know your characters
very well in the first, and then you could
explore them even more, was that a wonderful opportunity?
- Yeah, I think that's part of the advantage
of doing this kind of series of dramas,
that Cillian was saying earlier, you know,
it's a golden age of television and it really is.
And to be able to play the characters over many, many hours
is as part of the fact, you know,
the interest to do these projects
and hopefully for the audiences to watch them.
And I think Steve Knight has really trusted
that his audiences will go with them
and he's taken them into a very, very different place
in the second series.
So yeah, it was, you know, very interesting and exciting.
- Mm. - To do.
- Yeah. I mean, I concur with all of that.
It's a great privilege, you know,
and to get to play characters in a long form,
like, well, 12 hours in this case for us, it's a real gift.
- [Interviewer] And do you think that that was a benefit
of it being a TV series
rather than a feature film, for example,
that you have that longevity
to really explore the characters?
- Yes, well some stories will benefit from, I think,
serialization and others need to be compressed
into an hour and a half or two hours.
And this story, because it's a saga really,
needs that, needs television to tell this story.
- [Interviewer] Was it hard for you guys
to authentically recreate the past?
You know, this is a, it's a drama
and you obviously have your lines
and you have your costumes and everything,
but did you have to think about the fact
that you're trying to recreate
a particular time in the past?
- Yeah, I think that.
I think, I know Cillian did and so did I, you know,
you research these periods
because you have a responsibility,
particularly for, you were talking, I know you were
going to say something in a moment about, you know,
the First World War and what those men came back from.
Certainly with Polly, you know, I did,
I read a lot about Birmingham at the time,
not so much, but Birmingham, but mainly, you know,
the lives of working class women.
A lot of what we don't show it, let's be honest,
Polly's rarely seen with a pinny,
but the idea of the hardship that these women went through
and also the rebalance of power
when the men came back from the war,
how it was to deal with these man who were war torn
and still, you know, brought the fields of France
back to the streets of Birmingham.
And also, I remember my great grandmother
and the stories that are passed down.
You know, I still have a little,
the bone crucifixes that my great, great grandfathers,
you know, carved in the trenches.
And, you know, I remember my grandmother
telling me about the telegrams arriving.
And so you also remember those stories
that people have, talking about the First, you know,
The Great War and then the Second World War.
So you do, because you never have the arrogance
to think that we're all the same.
We're not all the same.
And that's one of the most interesting parts of acting.
- [Interviewer] How would you describe the relationship
between your two characters?
- Well, I personally think
it's such a fantastic relationship and Steve Knight is,
writes women brilliantly, always has done,
and I love the complexity of this relationship
because, you know, she is like kind of a mother figure
in one way, or would have been when he was younger,
even though there's not that much between them in age.
They're also then like brother and sister
and she, you know, she is the person that Tommy
trusts most in the world.
And then as a result of that, they probably have,
you know, there's a lot of tension between the two of them.
And she's, you know, the smartest of them, you know, and.
So they confide in each other a lot,
but always there's this sort of push and pull
kind of relationship between them, this struggle.
And I think she sees in him his recklessness and,
but also recognizes his, kind of,
ambition and strategic mind.
So it's, it's a wonderful thing to play as actors, I think.
- Mm.
And that also then, there's also the feminine-masculine,
that there is a protective nature
that Tommy has towards Polly.
- Yeah. - And you see,
starting with series two when she becomes more vulnerable
and actually asks for help.
And you think, "Oh, this is bit
that Tommy's just gonna go, you know,
'Wake up and smell the coffee.'"
That actually the masculine protectiveness
is also brought out in him.
You know, it's sort of honor amongst thieves.
So, you know,
everything that Cillian said,
and also, I think what's interesting
is because of the class he's writing about,
the fact that it is a working class Birmingham,
you can't actually reflect that world
without talking about women because women have always been,
had to be relied on, you know, maybe the people
who are running the country didn't need women
in the House of Commons or the House of Lords,
but certainly the people that were actually
really running the country, as in making the stuff,
selling the stuff and manufacturing it all,
women were just as, you know, just as important.
- [Interviewer] What have you taken away from the experience
of "Peaky Blinders" professionally?
What do you feel that it's taught you, personally?
Or what. - Mm, well, I think.
- Has it given you? - You always, you have
to learn from each job you do as an actor,
you're constantly learning.
It's an ongoing learning process really.
But this is unique, for me certainly,
in having to develop a character over a long period of time
and sort of grow with a character,
I've never done that before.
And I suppose to have the confidence
in going that once you've established it
and people, you know, have invested in it to a degree,
then you can be brave.
So I suppose it's that, I've tried to take that from it
as a lesson that you can actually be brave
with the character and take it places
that you mightn't have necessarily thought of
at the beginning.
- [Interviewer] Can you detach enough
that when you watch yourself you're still
really emotionally moved by what you see
when you watch it back?
- No. (laughs)
No.
I don't know any actor that likes watching his or herself.
It's always quite a sort of distressing experience.
But what's good about this is that there's lots
of stuff that, you know, we're not in.
So it's great to watch Polly's storyline
or Arthur's storyline that you're not necessarily part of
so you can, sort of, unclench
(Helen laughs) for that period of.
- Just breathe.
Take the paper bag away from your face before you reconnect.
I agree with Cillian.
I hadn't, I've never done something that I've returned to,
and I find it really interesting
how Steven has developed the characters.
It's, for me, almost like getting notes on series one,
because you think, "Ah, okay, that's what I wasn't
showing enough of," or, "That's why he wants to do it,"
or, "This is what he feels
about what I've done with his work."
I mean that in a good way, I mean, as in, you know,
you want notes from the person you're working with.
And that's, you know, I've tried to listen to that
as much as possible and to really serve it.
And, as Cillian said, it is, it's all about trust.
And also what it's like to return,
to work with the same people,
because it means that you feel much more relaxed
with each other, you don't have the first day nerves.
To be absolutely honest,
I've never felt unrelaxed or nervous with Cillian.
- And I, quite the same.
- But you want, you have an ambition therefore
in scenes to think, "Okay, well, we know we can go there
now let's see what we can do and how we can muck it up."