Helen McCrory
Actress, Mum and Philanthropist

Tag: Polly Gray

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Helen McCrory Talks Peaky Blinders Season Four

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Escaping The Gallows

December 11, 2017 | Tripwire

♦ Peaky Blinders season 4 began on 15 November and it has been a pretty eventful series so far. Here’s a chat with one of its cast members Helen McCrory, who plays Polly Gray, from the BBC themselves…

With Tommy’s actions landing members of the family in prison at the end of series three, where do we find Polly at the beginning of series four?

We open the series on Polly, Arthur, John and her son Michael being led to the gallows. In this moment, which is a real turning point for Polly, we see her believing that she’s going to die. She calls on the Virgin Mary to bring the spirits of her mum, her dad and her daughter to her. In that moment, she believes she sees her daughter’s face and from this moment on Polly believes that she’s living with the spirits constantly around her. Either she’s had some sort of mental breakdown and is unable to cope with reality or she really does see the spirit of her daughter and therefore has this newfound understanding of life. Once you take away the fear of death in someone, they have a sort of immortality. Her near death experience mirrors Tommy and Arthur’s time in the trenches. So these three characters are united in this fearless attitude towards life at the beginning of this series, which is what makes them so dangerous.

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Peaky Blinders series 4: “there’s no stopping” Aunt Polly

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She’s dangerous, unstoppable and hates the man who runs the family

By Louisa Mellor |

Contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders series 4

“Can you heal that?” asks Helen McCrory. That being the surprise arrival of a raft of coppers to cart the Shelby family off to prison at the end of series three. Even if there was a rescue plan all along, when a family member has put a noose around your neck and made you believe you were seconds from death, is forgiveness possible?

“The strength of the family is whether it can get together despite that and continue or not. This series is about that test,” says McCrory. Her character, Aunt Polly, “hates the man that runs the family,” she continues. “Even though she is a matriarch and he is the patriarch, will she unite or will she take him down?”

Polly’s experience on the gallows in the opening episode of Peaky Blinders series one has given her a new understanding of herself. “She has a fearless quality that makes somebody very dangerous, when they no longer fear death,” says McCrory. “There’s no stopping her.”

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Peaky Blinders star Helen McCrory: ‘Aunt Polly is more dangerous than ever’

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Helen McCrory thinks this year’s series could be her character’s best yet

by Sean Marland |

Helen McCrory thinks this year’s series could be her character’s best yet… Don’t read until you’ve watched the first episode as contains spoilers!

Bullets flew and blood splattered as Peaky Blinders made an action-packed return to our screens tonight on BBC2. With the Shelby family fighting for their lives as the mafia closes in, the carnage seems unlikely to let up any time soon and Helen McCrory thinks this year’s fourth series is the best yet!

“I couldn’t believe it when Shelby family were all arrested at the end of the last series,” says Helen, who plays Peaky Blinders matriarch Aunt Polly. “I didn’t know where we were going to go next, but Steven Knight is such a great writer and he managed to get himself out of a really tight corner. When those scripts arrive I tear them open because I can’t wait to see what’s coming next and this series really is a step up.”

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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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