Tag: Helen McCrory

Categories Interviews Peaky Blinders Print Media

A Quick Q&A with Aunt Polly of Peaky Blinders

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Helen McCrory Tells What to Expect in the New Season Three

by Staff | Channel 24 | October 19, 2016

Cape Town – The hit show Peaky Blinders returns for a third season on BBC First (DStv 119).

Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) is drawn into a maze of global intrigue in the electrifying new season of Steven Knight’s acclaimed family saga.

Approached by a secret organization on his own wedding day, Tommy finds himself at the center of an international arms deal that could change the course of history.

His legal and illegal businesses have made him rich beyond his dreams. .He now inhabits a Roaring Twenties world of beautiful people and sumptuous mansions, and he has found love at last. But Tommy’s relatives have become increasingly difficult to handle, and threaten to blow the Shelby family apart.

Aunt Polly (Helen McCrory) is Tommy’s second-in-command, the person he most trusts with the secrets and ambitions of the family business. But the return of her son Michael to the fold has made Polly uneasy about the company’s illegal enterprises. When she befriends a member of the upper classes, Polly imagines different possibilities for her future, and begins to ask herself questions that could strike at the very heart of the Peaky Blinders.

McCrory sat down for a quick Q&A about her characters and what to expect in the new season.

Where did we leave off with Polly in series two and how do we find her in series three?

We left Polly in series two having been reunited with the son that had been taken from her when he was young. She understandably feels hugely guilty about her past and wants to defend him with everything she has.  Campbell, played by Sam Neill, sees this weakness in her and uses it to humiliate her, compromising herself in order to save her son. Polly is further humiliated by the fact that her son and everyone else knows what she has done and so she does what Peaky Blinders do and she kills Campbell.

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Categories Interviews Print Media The Deep Blue Sea

‘Heart in her mouth’: Helen McCrory brings compassion to a tragic role in The Deep Blue Sea

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Helen McCrory’s Hester in The Deep Blue Sea

Peter Craven | September 29, 2016 | Sydney Morning Herald

Helen McCrory​ is at 48 one of the big-time actresses of the British stage, a classical actor who can burn up the stage in modern roles as well. You might have seen her as Cherie Blair with Helen Mirren in The Queen or as Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, or on TV in Peaky Blinders.

In 2005 I saw her in the West End in what is arguably Shakespeare’s greatest comic role for a woman, Rosalind in As You Like It to Dominic West’s Orlando. McCrory’s voice was deep velvet and her wit razor sharp, a Rosalind for the ages.

Helen McCrory in The Deep Blue Sea.Helen McCrory in The Deep Blue Sea.CREDIT:RICHARD HUBERT SMITH

National Theatre live broadcasts have shown her in The Last of the Haussmans with Julie Walters, and as a riveting Medea. Now she’s doing a modern classic, Terence Rattigan’s​ The Deep Blue Sea.

“I worked with [Harold] Pinter on Old Times and when I asked him who his favourite modern playwright was he said Rattigan,” McCrory says. “How bizarre, I thought – how deeply bizarre. Surely they couldn’t be further apart in content and style?” Pinter with his menacing pauses, his uncanny ear for dark implications.

Continue reading ‘Heart in her mouth’: Helen McCrory brings compassion to a tragic role in The Deep Blue Sea

Categories Honorary Degree University of York

Helen Awarded Honorary Degree from University of York

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Department of Theatre, Film and Television

by Staff | University of York | July 15, 2016

The Department of Theatre, Film and Television is delighted that Helen McCrory has been awarded an Honorary Degree. Award-winning British actress Helen McCrory has received an honorary degree at our summer 2016 graduation.

Prior to receiving the award, Helen visited the department and met with a small number of staff and students. She was very impressed with the facilities and is keen to develop a relationship with the department.

Helen has performed in numerous theatre productions, including at the Royal National Theatre. Her film and television roles include her portrayal of Cherie Blair in The Queen, Narcissa Malfoy in three of the Harry Potter films and Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders – for which she won a Best Actress Award.

In 2016, she will appear at the National Theatre, London in The Deep Blue Sea, and is currently filming We Happy Few, directed by Lone Scherfig.

Source: University of York

Categories Reviews The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea – Lyttelton, National Theatre, Review: ‘McCrory gives a commanding portrayal of a woman exhausted by unreciprocated desire’

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After winning awards for their collaboration on Medea, Helen McCrory and director Carrie Cracknell resume their partnership in this revival of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 masterpiece

by Paul Taylor | June 9, 2016 | The Independent

Helen McCrory gives a commanding performance in this revival of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play
Helen McCrory gives a commanding performance in this revival of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play
 (Richard Hubert Smith)

Helen McCrory and director Carrie Cracknell won awards for their striking collaboration on Medea. They resume their partnership, with more mixed results, in this revival of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 masterpiece.

You need an actress with the range to tackle the tragic extremities of Euripides and Racine if you seek to sound the depths of Hester Collyer, one of the great female roles of the postwar repertoire. The play may unfold in a dingy Ladbroke Grove rooming house, but it focuses on a woman who is a Fifties equivalent of Phedre, flouting convention in her obsessive infatuation with a man who cannot match the intensity of her feelings. One-sided passion, unequal love: it’s Rattigan’s abiding theme, explored here with matchless insight in a play that was inspired by the suicide of one of the playwright’s former male lovers.

Continue reading The Deep Blue Sea – Lyttelton, National Theatre, Review: ‘McCrory gives a commanding portrayal of a woman exhausted by unreciprocated desire’