I always use the First World War
as the, sort of, you know - as the sort of line.
And there was a Tommy before the First World War.
And then that happened, and then there's a Tommy Shelby
after the First World War.
And he's the one that we meet at the beginning of series one.
He looked at me the wrong way.
It's not a good idea to look at Tommy Shelby the wrong way.
The men that came back from that conflict were...just devastated.
And so there was this huge societal change where you had all these men
who had witnessed war on a scale that we've never sort of...imagined.
It's all right.
And of course, back then, they were just spat back into society
with no help.
For Tommy, I think what it did was - he lost all faith.
Religion was just a joke, you know, authority was just a joke.
You know, the establishment was a joke.
Tommy was a clay-kicker in the First World War,
which is basically a tunneller.
They tunnelled under enemy lines...
..and set explosives.
And so, it was the most claustrophobic, horrific,
dark job you could possibly have.
Like, the worst of the worst, you know?
And he seems to turn that trauma
into this kind of relentless ambition,
because he could have died at any point there,
he's not afraid of death.
So, every day is just, like, for free - so why not?
He's a fascinating character, then,
because he's relentless and fearless.
To encounter him as an enemy is pretty scary
because of that lack of fear.
There's no rest for me in this world.
Perhaps in the next.
Also, I think he's burdened with an intellect and trying to, sort of,
move in the world of mere mortals who process stuff
at a much slower pace.
I think for Tommy, it's very, very frustrating.
I think...
..so that you don't have to.
I think the way Tommy operates is, the smart people make the decisions,
and the less smart people carry them out.
And that seems to him to be the logical way of things.
And in his eyes, Polly and him are the smart ones.
They make the strategy,
and it's carried out by the other members of the family.
I think the pre-war Tommy used to smile a lot, he laughed a lot,
he wanted to work with horses.
He was very romantic.
And all of these things, you see scratches of them, you know,
throughout the show and there's times when he feels
like he's getting towards some sort of healing when he's with Grace.
And then it's taken away again.
And then he retreats back into that kind of shell emotionally.
Even though what he does in all of the series -
a lot of the actions are obviously
morally and completely at odds with what any of us would agree with,
that's why people are fascinated by him, because we see in him
a magnified version of what all humans are like.
And his goal, ultimately, you know, to protect his family -
people can identify with that.
I feel incredibly privileged to be a part of a show
that has incrementally improved season upon season.
And I'm very proud that we've managed to do that, you know?