Cillian Murphy Doesn’t Want ‘Peaky Blinders’ Movie to be ‘Preachy’ About Nazis: ‘Films Should Never Tell You How to Feel’

In Cillian Murphy’s grand return to the world of “Peaky Blinders,” audiences check in on Tommy Shelby in the midst of World War II, a time when Nazis would team up with British gangsters. Though the Nazi party is at the forefront of this new film, Murphy said one shouldn’t look to this film for an in-depth political discussion.

“That’s profoundly upsetting,” Murphy told The Sunday Times. “But then this film wears that lightly — it’s not ‘The Zone of Interest,’ let’s put it that way. And, look, the last thing I want to be involved in is preachy or dogmatic work because films should never tell you how to feel. They should just ask questions.”

The upcoming Netflix film “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” sees Murphy and series creator Steven Knight return to their world of British gangsters for the first time since it ended its 2013-2022 six-season run. Knight returns to write the film, directed by Tom Harper.

“This should be an entertaining action film with a big heart,” Murphy said. “But if you want to look closer it could be provocative too. The best mainstream entertainment operates simultaneously on those levels.”

Murphy specifically compared this film’s approach to politics to another iconic role of his: playing the inventor of the atomic bomb in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppeneheimer.” Murphy won Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his turn as J. Robert Oppenheimer in a film that he said can similarly function as both a big-screen spectacle and a probing piece of social commentary.

“If you want to talk about where we are in the world and look at how close we are to nuclear f–king Armageddon, you can think about ‘Oppenheimer’ in that way,” he said. “But if you just want to look at a great film with big explosions then that’s cool as well.”

“Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” releases in select cinemas on March 6 and will premiere on Netflix on March 20.

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