Peaky Blinders' final season will be "dark as f***", says Cillian Murphy

Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy has teased a dark final season for the hit show – "dark as fuck," in fact, is how the actor described it in an interview with Esquire.

Murphy plays Tommy Shelby, part of the notorious Shelby crime in interwar Birmingham. But after six seasons, will we see Tommy's redemption in the final installment? "I think that’s what Steve [Knight, showrunner] was aiming for," Murphy added, "with loads of wrong turns along the way. But I don’t know. I’ll leave that to the court of public opinion. I don’t know if he’s been redeemed."

The series first aired in 2013 on BBC Two and since then has won numerous awards. Joe Cole, Paul Anderson, and the late Helen McCrory also star (she passed away while season 6 was filming), with actors like Sam Claflin, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Adrien Brody also appearing in previous seasons.

Although season 6 may be the end of the series, we don't have to leave the world of Peaky Blinders just yet – a movie is set to start shooting in 2023 and, according to showrunner Steven Knight, "that will probably be the sort of the end of the road for Peaky Blinders as we know it."

As for what's next for Murphy, he's set to lead Christopher Nolan's next movie Oppenheimer alongside Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, and Josh Hartnett. Murphy will play Robert Oppenheimer, the man who developed the atom bomb. He's worked with Nolan several times before, appearing in The Dark Knight, Inception, and Dunkirk. 

Peaky Blinders season 6 arrives on the BBC later this month. In the meantime, fill out your watch list with our picks of the best TV shows of 2021.