Helen McCory Interview

Interview

HELEN Mc CRORY

Gustav Temple meets the actress who has played Polly Gray in five seasons of Peaky Blinders, to find out how deeply she has become connected to the character

I’ve talked to your co-star Paul Anderson

and creator Steven Knight about the men’s styling of Peaky Blinders. What was your experience in the costume department? Did you have any say in what you wear as Aunt Polly? I’m a real pain in the neck when it comes to costume, because it’s really important to me. I’ve always really designed what I’ve been wearing alongside the designer, because it makes an enormous difference to how you move, how you’re perceived and how you feel. So right from the beginning when we started Peaky, I wanted Polly to have a very tight silhouette, so they were saying, ‘This is the period, it’s drop-waist…’ and I said, yeah, I’m not wearing that. We need a corset and a hobble skirt and boots up to the thigh, and everything a size too small, tailored within an inch of its life. We need massive hair, with pins I’m going to stab people with, things I can whip out of fur; I need a gun on the inside thigh in a garter. It should all make me feel a certain way.

For the last few years we’ve worked with Alison McCosh, who sources costumes from museums, costume houses, places people don’t usually use. She’ll go as far as Washington, Barcelona or Rome to find the right piece; she’s as obsessive as I am. So before we even start filming, we’ll have entire outfits, complete with shoes, gloves, earrings, hats, for the entire season. Polly definitely wears her clothes as armour and is comfortable in her own skin.

“We need a corset and a hobble skirt and boots up to the thigh, and everything a size too small, tailored within an inch of its life.”

What can we expect sartorially in season 5? I saw some stills and you looked a bit more masculine than usual, in a sexy Marlene Dietrich sort of way.

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