Barry Keoghan has compared playing Tommy Shelby’s son Duke in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man to Simba in The Lion King.
Duke, Shelby’s firstborn son, was played by Conrad Khan when he first appeared in the final season of Peaky Blinders, but Keoghan is now taking over the role for the film.
He was first cast in 2024, leading to plenty of fan speculation over what his role could be, and viewers found out in the trailer released earlier this week.
Estranged from his father, he’s now in charge of the Peaky Blinders, with his aunt (Tommy’s sister) saying: “Your Gypsy son is running the Peaky Blinders like it’s 1919”.
Discussing the role, via Empire, Keoghan described Duke as “troubled” and “up to no good”, explaining: “That’s a boy, just looking for his father. Being a father myself, I really did relate to Duke, because there’s this cry for his father and this cry for the figure that he needs to be there.”
He added that Duke is seeking Tommy’s approval, and that he himself spent a lot of time on set studying and aiming to emulate Cillian Murphy, who is reprising his role as Tommy for the movie. “In the way that Simba follows his dad in The Lion King. It’s as simple as that,” he said, “Honestly! The Lion King was one of the ones that, for me, had that animalistic, father and son approach to it.”
He joked, comparing himself to Murphy, “Go on, be honest. Who’s got bluer eyes? I look more Cillian Murphy than Cillian looks Cillian Murphy.”
The Saltburn actor said he’d wanted to join Peaky Blinders for a long time, but hadn’t been the right fit for the characters they were casting. But for the movie, “I always wanted to be part of it, and I feel like this was the perfect moment, in the sense of who I play and the story that unfolds. It couldn’t be any more perfect casting.”
The original Peaky Blinders series ended in 2022 with Tommy riding into the sunset after finding out his terminal brain tumour was the result of a malicious false diagnosis orchestrated by one of his many enemies.
While many aspects of the movie – which is out in cinemas on March 6 before a Netflix release two weeks later – remain under wraps, Netflix has confirmed that Stephen Graham will return as union leader Hayden Stagg, Sophie Rundle is back as Tommy’s sister Ada Shelby and Ned Dennehy’s Charlie Strong will also be featured.
Ian Peck’s Curly and Packy Lee’s Johnny Dogs will also be reprising their roles for the Peaky Blinders movie.
We also know that long-time Peaky Blinders composers Antony Genn and Martin Slattery will score the movie with contributions from Amy Taylor of Amyl & the Sniffers and members of Fontaines D.C. ‘Puppet’, from Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten, was released yesterday.
The official synopsis for the film reads: “Birmingham, 1940. Amidst the chaos of WWII, Tommy Shelby is driven back from a self-imposed exile to 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…”