Cillian Murphy has opened up about his sadness that Helen McCrory was unable to film season six of the hit show Peaky Blinders due to the COVID pandemic before her death in April 2021.
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Speaking to Empire, the actor explained: "We were about to shoot and then the pandemic happened. If we had shot then, Helen would’ve been in the show, and that makes me feel sad."
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Calling Helen's heartbreaking death "a huge loss," he added: "Because she was the matriarch of the whole thing. As the character, but just also as her personality."
Helen very sadly died from cancer in April 2021. At the time, Cillian told The Guardian: "Oh, man. She was my closest colleague on Peaky, and one of the finest actors I’ve ever worked with. Any material, any scenes… she made it special. She could do power and vulnerability, one after the other… I was kind of in awe about how she lived her life – the way she balanced her work and her family so beautifully."
Cillian plays Tommy Shelby in the hit show
The actress shared two sons with fellow actor Damien Lewis, who said at the time: "I'm heartbroken to announce that after an heroic battle with cancer, the beautiful and mighty woman that is Helen McCrory has died peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family.
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"She died as she lived. Fearlessly. God we loved her and know how lucky we are to have had her in our lives. She blazed so brightly. Go now, Little One, into the air, and thank you."
Helen passed away in April 2021
Season six is set to air in 2022, and while the plot has been kept underwraps, we also know that it'll pick up exactly where series five left off – with Tommy considering taking his own life after he was betrayed during an assassination attempt gone wrong. According to reports, that cliffhanger will be resolved in the new episodes, and the show's creator Steven Knight has said that he believes the new episodes are set to the "the best yet".
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