Helen McCrory on Peaky Blinders and its ‘disgusting’ violence
Peaky Blinders is back, with some ‘disgustingly violent’ scenes, but Helen McCrory, aka Aunt Pol, says it SHOULD be horrifying – that’s what happens if you embrace gang life…
Sitting down with Helen McCrory – aka Aunt Polly Shelby – it isn’t hard to see how the actress landed her role in BBC’s
Peaky Blinders. She is forward-thinking and strong-minded, yet warmhearted and honest – and, like her screen character, she puts family first. But Helen, 51 this week, admits she ‘can’t watch’ some of the violence. ‘It
should be horrifying… because it’s not a natural state of affairs,’ she says. ‘Anybody who looks at the violence and thinks,
“That is exactly what I want to do”… I mean, sick.’ But, far from normalising violence for younger viewers, Helen hopes certain scenes may prove so disgusting and disturbing that they might actually put people off joining gangs altogether.
Hi, Helen! How does it feel to be playing Polly again?
It’s much more fun playing a baddy! Being part of a gunand razor-wielding gang is not UN work, but within that, she’s all heart, really! It’s written so brilliantly – [writer and creator] Steven Knight is constantly changing who Polly is.
What can you tell us about the upcoming series?
It’s the 1920s, and they hit the [ Wall Street] Crash, which led to economic depression in 1929. Polly was enjoying all the money at the start, but I don’t think she actually gives a damn about it once she’s paid her rent. She feels uncomfortable in silk and doesn’t particularly like the people wealth brings, either. She’ll always go back to her own. She starts out happy because she’s back in the corner, scrapping again! She also has to stop Michael [her son] and Tommy killing each other – and is thinking about what legacy she’s going to leave for her children. Romance is also in the air for dear Pol, but I don’t know how much of that will make the final cut!
Do you think about what legacy you will leave behind?
I am involved with a pop-up charity on a council estate, the Sir Hubert von Herkomer Arts Foundation, that offers free childcare. I’m a patron. As you get older, you have more time. You want your children to look up to you – to think you went out and did things.
There are certainly a lot of strong, go-getting women
‘No child thinks their parent is cool, even when their father is Tommy Shelby’
in the Shelby family…
Indeed! My first scene this series is showing me in the middle of a very ‘happy’ moment – it was the start of mental sexual freedom. You start to see the women around the Peaky Blinders beginning to draw parameters and giving them limits. I think the Shelby men are all ‘it’s boundless and limitless – I can do what I want’, which is very attractive and wonderful, but a total fantasy, with the women always going, ‘ Well, no, because you’ll get your head cut off!’ There are some wonderful scenes where Tommy comes back to his son, Charles, and his little boy tells him how it is! It’s hilarious – no child thinks their parent is cool, even when their father is Tommy Shelby.
Do your children not think you’re cool, then?
Of course not! Manon is 12 and Gulliver is 11! Just like I didn’t think my parents were… even Liv Tyler didn’t think her dad [rock band Aerosmith’s singer, Steven Tyler] was cool when she was 17, probably still doesn’t!
Do you have a laugh on set?
You have to! My best friend is Cillian [Murphy, who plays Tommy]. We’re always talking to each other about music – that man has an encyclopaedic knowledge of very cool bands.
How did new Peaky members, like Sam Claflin, fit in?
We’ve all been doing the show for so long, we’re like an extended family, and someone brought a guest to the Sunday barbecue. So, you still have the same dynamics, but your attention is directed at different people on the day. I saw one scene with Sam, and he was superb. Anya Taylor-Joy [Gina Gray] is great fun, too.
You said, when filming BBC drama MotherFatherSon, it was nice to pop home afterwards. Is it hard to be shooting in Birmingham, away from your family?
Yes, but I’m so used to staying in the hotels up there, we actually know the staff now… but it’s still not home. I don’t work weekends.
Are you anything like Polly?
I get terrible hangovers, and I’m very protective of my children. Polly smokes, but I’ve given up. As an ex-smoker, I’d prefer to smoke a nicotine cigarette (which I adore and can’t have) to the herbal ones on set. I’m constantly saying, ‘This scene is outside – can I have a real one?!’ Herbal ones taste disgusting. Cillian worked out that in the average series of Peaky Blinders, he smoked 1,000 herbal cigarettes.
What are you doing next?
I’m working with director Stephen Frears on a three-part TV adaptation of a play, The Quiz, about Charles Ingram, ‘the coughing major’ [who famously cheated on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2001]. It’s really about the birth of reality TV.
Peaky Blinders series 5, BBC One, Sunday, 9pm