British actress Helen McCrory, star of Peaky Blinders, died at the age of 52. Her husband, co-actor Damian Lewis, announced her death in a moving Twitter tribute to ‘the beautiful and powerful woman’ who lost her ‘heroic battle with cancer’.
Exactly one year ago, Deadline’s Jake Kanter spoke to the A-list couple in the first weeks of the pandemic as part of Deadline’s series “Coping With Covid-19 Crisis”. In a lively and heartwarming interview, the two talked about their initiative to feed health workers in the UK. In a matter of weeks, the duo raised $ 1 million and built a central system for hot meals to be delivered to health workers in London.
“We did not sleep and are on the phone all the time,” McCrory told Deadline in the April 2020 interview. “You improvise and make it up the way you go, because it’s never been done.”
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McCrory was about to start filming Peaky Blinders while Lewis shot Billions when the entire Hollywood production was discontinued in March 2020. The one turning point for the duo was that they had to spend an unexpected extra time at home. Lewis and the couple’s two children will cherish after McCrory’s death. “This is a great opportunity to spend some time together,” Lewis told Deadline last April. “Just do things together, play Monopoly, play Risk, plant a fence, cook together.”
In the interview, McCrory also starred in season 6 of Peaky Blinders which was on the verge of production when the pandemic began. She talked about spending one day on hair and makeup and testing for the program, during which many of the production team realized that ‘something very big is coming.’
“The next morning I woke up and told my producer I was no longer comfortable … Cillian Murphy did the same,” she said. “Together with the producers, we approached the BBC and said we were going to pull it off now before we had to go any further.” Production was halted on March 16. “It simply came to our notice then. Terribly unimportant, “McCrory said three weeks later.
Postponed by the pandemic, Peaky Blinders’ the sixth and final season is underway this past January. It’s unclear if McCrory shot any episodes, but her untimely death will likely change the final arc of her beloved character, Elizabeth “Polly” Gray.
McCrory also voiced Stelmaria on HBOs Its dark materials. She has yet to record any scenes for the upcoming third and final season of the fantasy drama When She Dies, and it is unfortunate that her film as Asriel’s demon is likely to be remade.