The secret behind how Cillian Murphy smoked over 3,000 cigarettes in Peaky Blinders
"They can't be good for you"
Cillian Murphy does one thing above all else throughout Peaky Blinders: smoke. In fact, he’s lit up more than 3,000 cigarettes since starting the show.
Think about it: he’s puffing on a cigarette in almost every other scene in any season of Peaky Blinders. We’ve lost count of how many times he’s performed his ritual: rubbing the cigarette side to side across his lips before letting it hang loose and lighting it.
He isn’t the only character who smokes. Arthur (Paul Anderson), Ada (Sophie Rundle), and nearly everyone else has a cigarette at one point or another.
However, Murphy smokes more than anyone else. So, with Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man dropping this week, we’re asking – aptly, given the title – how he managed to get through so many cigarettes.
How Cillian Murphy smoked over 3,000 cigarettes in Peaky Blinders
In short, Murphy didn’t smoke any real cigarettes during the making of Peaky Blinders or The Immortal Man. They were fake, herbal cigarettes with no nicotine or tobacco.
Speaking to The Independent in 2019, “People did smoke all day [back then] and it just became a Tommy thing.
“People did smoke all day [back then] and it just became a Tommy thing.
“There were these rose cigarettes that are herbal – Steve [Knight, the creator] would joke they’re one of your five a day. I asked the prop guys to count how many I smoked just out of interest, and they think it’s something like 3,000.”
Don't miss a single story! Add us as a Preferred Source in Google for all your television news
That’s not to say they’re healthy. For example, Honeyrose (a company that produces similar cigarettes) warns on its website that they still contain tar and carbon monoxide, and packs still come with health warnings.
In a 2023 interview with The Guardian, Murphy spoke about his experience with herbal cigarettes.
“I’ve smoked so many fake cigarettes for Peaky and [Oppenheimer]. My next character will not be a smoker. They can’t be good for you. Even herbal cigarettes have health warnings now,” he said.
Why Tommy Shelby rubs his lips with cigarettes
As for Shelby’s tendency to rub a cigarette on his lips, it’s not just a meaningless habit: it’s to do with the cigarettes themselves.
Murphy explained to BBC Radio 1: “That comes from the fact that the cigarettes, we cut the filter off or do we leave the filter on I cannot recall, but anyway if you don’t rub them across your lips initially, they will stick.
What is Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man about?
According to Netflix, Tommy Shelby will be "driven back from a self-imposed exile" in the chaos of the Second World War.
As he returns to Birmingham, he'll "face his most destructive reckoning yet".
"With the future of the family and the country at stake, Tommy must face his own demons, and choose whether to confront his legacy, or burn it to the ground. By order of the Peaky Blinders," the synopsis adds.
This will also involve a reunion with his son: Duke (played by Barry Keoghan), who's become the divisive, violent leader of the Peaky Blinders.
“That just became this sort of idiosyncrasy but it was out of necessity because otherwise the cigarettes would stick to my lip and I just kept doing it and it became a Tommy thing.
“These things develop over the course of the show.”
While it’s never been formally ranked, Peaky Blinders has to among the shows that feature the most smoking. Mad Men is another contender, while Daniel Mays got an unofficial award for the number of cigarettes he smoked during the making of Des.
