Jamie Bell Takes Over As Duke, Charlie Heaton Stars

Jamie Bell (All of Us Strangers, Rocket Man) and Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things, Industry) will lead the cast of the new Peaky Blinders series, Steven Knight’s latest installment in his popular franchise for Netflix and the BBC. Jessica Brown Findlay (Silo, The Flatshare), Lashana Lynch (The Day of The Jackal, No Time to Die), and Lucy Karczewski (Stereophonic) also have been cast in the period drama, which has an order for two six-episode seasons and has started filming in and around Digbeth Loc. Studios in Birmingham.

Bell will take over the role of Duke Shelby, the eldest son of Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), which was played by Conrad Khan in the sixth and final season of the original series and by Barry Keoghan in the followup movie, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, which was released recently on Netflix.

You can see a full first-look image of Bell as Tommy below.

A recasting had been expected as the Peaky Blinders sequel series is set ten years after the events of The Immortal Man.

No details have been provided about Heaton’s character; the cast announcement hints that he may be leading the new generation of the show’s eponymous Birmingham street gang alongside Duke. This marks English actor Heaton’s return to Netflix where he played Jonathan Byers on hit Stranger Things for its five-season run.

“I am thrilled that we are announcing a new era of Peaky Blinders, moving the story to post-war Birmingham in the early 50s,” series’ writer and creator Knight said. “We are incredibly fortunate to have Jamie Bell taking the role of Tommy Shelby’s oldest son, Duke, and to have Charlie Heaton also leading the cast. There are more exciting cast announcements to come, and Peaky is on the road again.”

Per the new show’s official logline, in this new era of Peaky Blinders, a decade after World War Two, the race to rebuild Birmingham becomes a brutal contest of mythical dimensions. This is a city of unprecedented opportunity and jeopardy. At its blood-soaked heart is Duke Shelby (Bell): older, wiser, more ambitious, and most certainly more dangerous.

Information on the roles played by Brown Findlay, Lynch and Karczewski, who is making her television debut, also is not being disclosed at this time.

The Peaky Blinders sequel series is being produced by Banijay UK’s Kudos and Garrison Drama for the BBC in the UK – where the two seasons will run on BBC iPlayer and BBC One – and for Netflix globally.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, written by Knight and directed by Tom Harper, stars Murphy, reprising his Tommy Shelby role from the original series, alongside fellow Peaky Blinders cast mates Sophie Rundle, Ned Dennehy, Packy Lee, Ian Peck, and Stephen Graham as well as franchise newcomers Keoghan, Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Roth and Jay Lycurgo. Released on March 20, Immortal Man has been Netflix’s No.1 movie globally for two weeks running.

Created and written by Knight and starring Murphy, the original Peaky Blinders premiered on BBC Two in the UK in 2013 and debuted on Netflix a year later. It won the BAFTA for Best Drama Series for its fourth season in 2018 and moved to BBC One in 2019 for its fifth and sixth seasons.

A global hit, the series has spawned a franchise which, in addition to the feature, includes tie-in books, clothing lines, a video game, ballet and an immersive theater production.