Categories Peaky Blinders Print Media Tributes

Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole: ‘Helen McCrory was a force of nature’

By Helenistic | helen-mccrory.com | September 15, 2024

In a new  “What I’ve Learnt” interview with The Sunday Times, British Actor Joe Cole, who worked with Helen on Peaky Blinders,  pays a lovely tribute to her.

“Helen McCrory was a force of nature. The people who burn the brightest in this world may be the people who are taken too soon. [The actress, who played Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders, died in 2021.] It’s heartbreaking. You felt like you had to be on your toes around her, in a good way. She’d be asking you what you were doing that weekend, then she’d be cracking jokes and you’d have to have your game face on. She seized life by the balls. She was amazing with my little brother, Finn. Peaky Blinders was his first acting role. I know they were very close. She left a real mark on the world. I assumed everyone was as charismatic and funny as her, but as I’ve gone through the industry I’ve realised, oh, wait, no, that was just Helen.”

You can read the interview in its entirety here.

Categories Peaky Blinders Print Media

‘Peaky Blinders’ EP Caryn Mandabach on How Tommy – and Aunt Polly – Got the Series Finale They Deserved

Farewell to Aunt Polly

Despite “Peaky Blinders” being centered on a gang in the 1900s with razor blades sewed into their caps, it’s the women – both on and off the screen – who are the sharpest of the bunch. Leading the pack is executive producer Caryn Mandabach, whose company Caryn Mandabach Productions owns and operates the Peaky Blinders IP. “I’m the studio, as we would say in America…. Pretend I’m Sony” she told WrapWomen during a recent Zoom interview.

But being the boss is a double-edged razor. On one end, Mandabach gets to oversee exciting projects like partnering with Bushmills Irish Whiskey on a special Peaky Blinders recipe. On the other, Mandabach must always keep her business cap on – no matter how tough the situation.

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