How Tommy Shelby's Lack Of Eating Became A Running Gag On Peaky Blinders

You just never know what quirky aspects of a long-running television show will begin to take on a life of its own over the course of the series. In "Peaky Blinders" alone, much has already been made of the frankly horrifying amount of herbal cigarettes the cast had to smoke throughout each season, or the somewhat shocking reveal that those distinctive hats worn by the Peaky Blinders weren't actually all that historically accurate to the real-life gang. But there's one oddity in particular that stood out to lead actor Cillian Murphy in the early going, which soon transformed into a running gag that everyone was in on.

If you ever noticed during your viewing of seasons 1 and 2 of "Peaky Blinders" that the gang ringleader Tommy Shelby never actually ate a lick of food — despite several scenes taking place in dining rooms and bars with plenty of options to choose from — you're not alone. Once Murphy himself picked up on this unintentionally recurring motif, he and creator Steven Knight apparently decided to lean into this for kicks and giggles. In an interview with BBC Radio 1, the "Oppenheimer" star took on a bemused tone as he recalled how this came about:

"These things develop over the course of the show. For example, I remember we had gotten through the first two series and then we realized that Tommy has never eaten. We've never seen Tommy eat. He sat down at tables, but has never consumed a morsel. So then we made it a kind of running gag. So throughout the 36 hours of television, Tommy Shelby never consumes anything."

If we were to take everything we see on-screen in "Peaky Blinders" at face value, we'd have no choice but to accept that the entirety of Tommy Shelby's diet consists of Irish whiskey, multiple packs of cigarettes a day, and a heaping dose of brutal violence to keep him going. Should you have ever caught yourself wondering why the life expectancy during the early 1900s was so low, well, there's your answer. As it turns out, serving as the PTSD-afflicted leader of the Peaky Blinders in smog-choked Birmingham tends to be hazardous to one's health. Who knew!

As silly and amusing as it was to institute an unofficial "ban" on letting Tommy have anything to eat, Cillian Murphy sees a greater benefit to giving television characters the time and space to create their own little quirks and oddities. In the BBC Radio interview, the subject of Tommy's eating habits only arose after a question about the peculiar way that Murphy always rubbed his lips with his cigarettes before lighting them. As he explains, this came about as a practical concern — the specific herbal cigarettes they used would always stick to his lips in a very un-cinematic way, so that quickly became a habit that Murphy directly integrated into the character. As he put it:

"So these things develop when you have the luxury of being with a character for so long, these little things arise. I will say to Steve or Steve will pick up on it, and then we'll just kind of run with it."

Although the series came to an end in season 6, the planned "Peaky Blinders" movie means we haven't seen the last of Tommy's quirks just yet.