Helen McCrory explores the Atlantis Bookshop which specializes in magic and the occult
Showtime | YouTube | December 19, 2014
Categories Penny Dreadful Video
Author: helenistic
Categories A Little Chaos Video
VIDEO: A Little Chaos Official Trailer
Helen as Madame Le Notre
Lionsgate Films UK | You Tube | December 18, 2014
Categories Interviews Peaky Blinders Print Media
Helen McCrory from Peaky Blinders on playing lethal Aunt Polly
Helen McCrory as Aunt Polly shows it isn’t just the men who are deadly in Peaky Blinders
By Matt Bungard | November 17, 2014 | The Age
Did you have to do much research into the actual Peaky Blinders gang before you took on the role?
There’s not that much written about the Peaky Blinders – there’s about two or three books that touch on them, and that touch on the violence in Birmingham and the gangs that were going around in the north of England at the time. But what I did do is I spoke a lot to (program creator) Steven Knight, and he was inspired by stories that his father told him. [His father] had been sent to deliver a message to his uncle, and he was terrified; he had to go to a part of town that he’d never been to. He went down Garrison Lane and knocked on the door and went into a smoke-filled room, and saw it was an illegal betting shop. And in the room, behind the glass there were these three men drinking homemade gin out of jam jars and were wearing the most beautiful three-piece suits and peaked caps, surrounded by piles of money. And his father became obsessed with this world – he didn’t ever join it, but he found out all these stories and passed them on to Steve. And so really, Steve is the person that all the actors go to to talk about these stories and he knows all these characters; they all existed. So it was through him, really. Like a lot of this history, it’s passed on orally but isn’t written down.
Continue reading Helen McCrory from Peaky Blinders on playing lethal Aunt Polly
Helen McCrory’s Travelling Life
Helen McCrory: “What I love about travel is the freedom. Anything that gets in the way of that is missing the point”
by | October 20, 2014
Categories Interviews Peaky Blinders Print Media
Helen McCrory: “How dare you sit on your arse and not support other women?!”
Peaky Blinders’ Helen McCrory on playing Aunt Polly, working-class Britain – and the lack of feminism in today’s society
How much have you enjoyed creating season two?
Polly’s story this year is much, much more interesting. I don’t know if Steven [Knight, writer] made a conscious effort or it’s just what he found the most interesting from the last series, but the women’s parts on the whole [are more interesting]. I think you have to establish that the world of the Shelbys is a man’s world, but once you’ve got that up and running, then you can start to look at the women’s world, which were much more delineated than they are now, so they are completely different characters and completely different sets and settings. I’ve had a fantastic time this year, he’s written me one of my best parts I’ve ever played.
It even passes the Bechdel test. Does it offer a more interesting perspective of women in period dramas?
If you actually look at the working class, the working class women ran the homes, those women worked hard, they were the heartbeat of the society, knowing where the kids are, running it all, making sure that the drunk man in the pub was picked up by somebody else’s husband and brought home, and knowing what’s happening on the streets, because you have to, because no one else is helping you. So yes, just by setting it in working-class Britain, which was 95% of the rest of the country, yeah it does.
Continue reading Helen McCrory: “How dare you sit on your arse and not support other women?!”