For Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan, filming Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man reportedly skipped the easy handshake phase and threw both actors directly into a grimy confrontation.
Their first shared day was not spent around a polished production table, rehearsing comfortable dialogue, or finding a rhythm under studio lights.
Instead, the pair arrived at a muddy pig enclosure to shoot an intense fight sequence, immediately stepping into the fractured relationship between Tommy Shelby and Duke.
Murphy later summed up the bizarre introduction with eight striking words: “That was our first day on set together.”
It was an almost brutally perfect setup for a Peaky Blinders return, where family bonds rarely arrive wrapped in warmth and every reunion carries danger.
Keoghan, stepping into Duke’s world, found himself facing Murphy’s iconic Tommy in a wet, unpleasant location that made performance and environment impossible to separate.
The mud was not just background texture; it reportedly became part of the tension, turning each movement into something heavier, dirtier, and far more volatile.
There was no glamorous first-day polish, no careful easing into the roles, and certainly no clean Hollywood version of a father-son introduction.
Instead, the actors were pushed directly into conflict, allowing the harsh physical setting to shape the uneasy emotional connection between the characters.
For Murphy, who has carried Tommy Shelby through years of bloodshed, betrayal, and family warfare, the moment sounded like another fitting chapter in the character’s brutal legacy.
For Keoghan, it became a memorable entry point into a world where even the first day at work can feel like survival training.
That pigsty sequence may have looked like chaos from the outside, but it gave the two stars an instant shared history built through discomfort and confrontation.
And in the savage universe of Peaky Blinders, there may have been no more fitting way for Tommy and Duke’s troubled bond to begin.