Peaky Blinders has become one of the most watched period crime dramas on BBC television. Since its premiere in 2013, it has risen to fame in a really fast way, especially since the series began to be broadcast through the streaming platform, Netflix.
Thanks to the fame of Peaky Blinders, many of the viewers have noticed a curious detail of the main character, and that is that throughout the drama we have never seen Tommy Shelby eating during the series, and this is not only curiosity, since that it was the same veteran, Cillian Murphy who revealed the detail.
The Irish actor plays the leader of the Shelby crime family, along with the other acting professionals, Grace Burgess (Annabelle Wallis), Arthur Shelby Jr. (Paul Anderson), Ada Shelby (Sophie Rundle), John Shelby (Joe Cole) , Michael Gray (Finn Cole) and the late Polly Gray (Helen McCrory).
In addition to those mentioned, other famous screen actors also appear in recurring roles throughout the show, including Sam Neill, Tom Hardy, Adrien Brody, Aidan Gillen, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Sam Claflin. All of them fundamental to give life to this excellent production.
The series was created by British filmmaker Steven Knight, Peaky Blinders was set in the city of Birmingham, England, and its story was based on real events. These were young men who sewed razor blades into the peaks of their caps and operated in the city from the 1890s to the 1910s.
In one of the recent interviews, Cillian Murphy explained why Tommy Shelby has never been seen eating during the series. The truth is that the actor had not realized that during the first seasons, 1 and 2, Tommy had never appeared eating in front of the cameras, it was when he gave Steven Knight the idea to continue with this joke.
“I remember we had gotten through the first two sets and then we realized that Tommy had never eaten, we had never seen Tommy eat. He has sat at tables, but has never consumed a bite. So, we made it kind of a running joke. So, throughout the 36 hours of television, Tommy Shelby never consumes anything, except, I think, once he consumes a sprig of mint when he is with his son. So these things develop when you have the luxury of being with a character for so long, these little things come up, and you just… You know, I’ll tell Steve, or Steve will find out.”
Another reason why Tommy was never seen, could be due to his complicated lifestyle, the companies that this leader had in his power, were truly absorbing, so his day to day was not enough to sleep or eat to taste
