STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Before the actor Cillian Murphy rose to fame for the movie "Oppenheimer," he was a gangster. I mean to say that he played a gangster, a kind of organized crime boss in England between the world wars. His character was Tommy Shelby, who walks into a bar where almost everybody knows to be afraid of him, except one man.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PEAKY BLINDERS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Who the [expletive] is Tommy Shelby?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, laughter).
CILLIAN MURPHY: (As Thomas Shelby) Perhaps someone should explain to him who I am.
INSKEEP: Glad to do it. Cillian Murphy's character is the leader of Peaky Blinders, a fictional crime gang that takes its name from a real one in history. In this historical drama, Murphy wears great, early 20th century suits and a flat cap with razor blades sewn into it while calmly fleecing people and sometimes worse. "Peaky Blinders" ran for six seasons and is now back as a Netflix movie called "Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man." Cillian Murphy came to the microphone to talk about the World War I veteran he has played for so long.
MURPHY: He was deeply, deeply traumatized by his experiences in the war. And then he kind of lost all fear of death, all fear of authority and had this kind of relentless drive and ambition.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PEAKY BLINDERS")
PAUL ANDERSON: (As Arthur Shelby) You think we can take on the Chinese and Billy Kimber? Billy's got a bloody army.
MURPHY: (As Thomas Shelby) I think, Arthur. That's what I do. I think so that you don't have to.
INSKEEP: It strikes me that this entire series is a kind of expression of post-traumatic stress disorder.
MURPHY: I think you'd be correct in saying that, although it doesn't sound that entertaining.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: But he was a tunneler in the First World War, which was, like, the worst job of all, where they would tunnel under the German line and in these terribly claustrophobic, awful, awful, un-kind of-imaginable conditions. And he came out of that completely altered. So that's the premise of the story, really, is a man that's kind of - engine is trauma, you know, and nowhere to put it, because obviously, there was no one to talk to. It wasn't really acknowledged. So they were just spat back into society, these men.
INSKEEP: Granted, you've had a lot of practice by now. But how did you try to get into the headspace of someone who's been through that extreme wartime experience?
MURPHY: Well, I did an awful lot of reading back then when we began the project. And there's an awful lot of material out there and an awful lot of firsthand accounts of soldiers that survived. And the thing about, like, PTSD is that it's extremely interesting because there aren't just one set of symptoms. You know, it can manifest in many, many different forms. And some of it can be physical, some of it can be deeply psychological. And it's kind of about, you know, seeing this man who has had all his values crushed by his experiences. And is there a possibility that over the course of this story, we can defrost him as a human being, we can kind of rehabilitate him or we can excavate and see what his real, true values are?
INSKEEP: What makes this character who kills people, who is a crime boss, sympathetic to you?
MURPHY: I never said he was sympathetic to me. And I don't necessarily think that it's my job to feel sympathy or outrage or any real emotion toward the character. I wouldn't kind of judge any character that I play. My job really is to do justice to the writing. And to do that, you have to try and understand why the character is behaving like they are behaving. But there is a humanity to him, I think, that I was very curious to try and play alongside, as you say, this kind of - this gangster boss who is very violent. And you'd definitely cross the street if you saw him in real life. But is there a humanity in him that keeps making us come back to spend time with him as viewers?
INSKEEP: I was also thinking about another aspect of this. You've been playing this character for years and years. And of course, it's a period piece. It's about after World War I, in the U.K. But you're doing it in a period when, in real time, in America and the U.K., there are people going off to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and coming back in coffins or coming back with PTSD. As you were playing this role, did you look around in society, see people on the street, look at the news and feel you recognized something?
MURPHY: Well, unfortunately, it seems to be a perennial kind of story, which is profoundly depressing. But, you know, we were very, very careful in the storytelling that this was a gangster saga, very stylized and heightened. And it's not a documentary, you know, and it's not trying to be dogmatic or anything like that. But if it asks a few questions while being entertaining, that's a good thing. And I think, you know, you have to be careful. And I never want to become sort of preachy or holier than thou. But I think if, you know, you're making a film that is about a time in history and then it reflects back on why this same situation is occurring again and again and again, then that's interesting.
INSKEEP: We were talking about ways that Tommy Shelby, your character in this film, does or doesn't resemble your character in "Oppenheimer." They're both brilliant. They're both haunted. They're both deeply involved with killing and in war. Would you add anything to that list?
MURPHY: No.
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: Go on.
MURPHY: And for me, it's very important to never try to repeat yourself and to always try and challenge yourself and to always, you know, play a character that represents a challenge. And there is obvious kind of crossover in terms of the trauma that they have to live with and that sort of guilt that, can that ever be neutralized? And is this immutable guilt ever something that you can properly absorb as a human being? But I'm only thinking about that now (laughter), now that you bring it up.
INSKEEP: Well, I'm thinking of a way that they're different, in a sense. One is a brilliant and talented person who got an education and opportunities. And the other seems to be a brilliant and talented person who didn't have much education and didn't get much opportunity.
MURPHY: The difference there being the sort of class system that exists very profoundly in Britain and less so in America, certainly at that time. And Tommy Shelby's story of being this working-class kid who eventually becomes an MP and then achieves knighthood and then realizes that these people at the top are, in fact, worse than him and his contemporaries. So, you know, I think there's a different cultural lens to look at the two characters through.
INSKEEP: Cillian Murphy, thanks so much. I've enjoyed talking with you.
MURPHY: Pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RED RIGHT HAND")
NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS: (Singing) On a gathering storm comes a tall, handsome man in a dusty black coat with a red right hand.
INSKEEP: The film "Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man" is on Netflix starting Friday. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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