Peaky Blinders spoilers ahead.
Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) is definitely working a 'keep your friends close, but your enemies closer' strategy as Peaky Blinders series six continues.
Top of his list? Fascist party leader Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin), and the woman he's engaged to, Diana Mitford (Amber Anderson).
Based on the real historical figure who married Mosley at Joseph Goebbels' place in 1936 with Hitler as the guest of honour, Diana knows how to get her feet under the table in far-right political social circles. So you can imagine how well her introduction went down with Tommy and his wife Lizzie.
But there's more to this woman than meets the eye. It's obvious, despite her engagement to the fascist party leader, that she's got an eye on Tommy, seen looking adoringly on as he commands the respect of the Labour Party supporters of Birmingham.
It's also openly discussed at one point she had previously taken both male and female lovers. Basically, there's a lot to peel back for her, and it's obvious she's about to ruffle some feathers in the upcoming final episodes of the Peaky world.
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Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, Amber tells us about playing the divisive character, balancing the reality with the fiction, and what may lie ahead for her now she's seen Tommy Shelby in action.
How does it feel joining a juggernaut of a show like Peaky Blinders just as it's winding down?
It feels quite exciting in a way, because it's the final chapter, which means hopefully everyone will be excited to watch it and see what happens. I don't think a character like this could last over six seasons.
She's so shocking and kind of disruptive to the storyline. I don't know how people would have put up with her for longer than a season! I've been a fan of the show for years and so I'd always said to myself as an actor working in London, if I ever got the chance to be Peaky, obviously I would jump at it.
And then to get a chance to play such an interesting real historical character was just a no brainer, really... even if she is a bit problematic, and obviously completely differently politically aligned to me.
She is definitely an antagonist, that I will say.
Diana Mitford is one of the few Peaky characters based on a real person. How did you find equating the fiction with the fact in your portrayal?
It's really hard, because I went away and did about three months of reading. I read so many books and listened as much as possible to recordings of her talking. But I think, ultimately, she's a real historical character in a fictionalised TV series, which is based on reality, but it's not reality.
Ultimately, you're not making a documentary, you're making a TV show. So I think at some point you have to throw away all the research and just, you know, the script is king. You just have to do what's written on the page.
I think the research is helpful in terms of helping you hopefully capture an essence of somebody, but obviously, she didn't actually meet Thomas Shelby. I'm sure a lot of the things that happen in this season of Peaky are ideas based on real historical events, but there's no proof they happened.
So it's the joy of being an actor, also the burden – trying to do someone real justice, but also still knowing you can have artistic licence and you can actually create something new because it is kind of make-believe.
I didn't struggle with it, but it was definitely a consideration because I was aware Diana's grandchildren are still alive. She actually has living descendants now, and so I didn't want to do anything that would be too out there, but she was a very interesting, very shocking, unusual person. So I think you have to do justice to that too.
During episode three, it's mentioned she has had dalliances with women as well as men – are we going to see more of that from Diana in the series?
In terms of her sexuality? I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about what really happens in future episodes! But I think it's interesting.
I'm really into history, and I listen to this podcast which talks a lot about female history, and it's interesting that bisexuality and queerness, depending on which time period, was dealt with very differently. Especially for women.
It was seen as, I think in that time, and in the 19th century especially, a lot of women had "female friendships", the nature of which would have been completely different. But it was sort of accepted on that basis as long as they were actually married to a man.
Everyone had lovers and everyone had mistresses, and you could sort of, not do whatever you want, but I think there was a kind of unspoken acceptance. So in that sense, I think she is probably quite historically accurate, but we obviously have no proof Diana was bisexual, so I think that is more representative of the time period, rather than her necessarily as a person.
I think a few of the Mitfords were bisexual. I think there's proof, or at least written accounts, that the sisters had relationships with women. So I don't think it's far off. I think especially in "high society", I think there was a lot more that was 'behind closed doors', but kind of was done.
I think the societal press release was "We don't do this. It's against God's law." But I still think people were having extremely legitimate queer relationships behind the scenes and I think that is accurate for that time period. So obviously when I read that, I was like, "Yeah, I think that's so possible".
The main relationship in her life is Oswald Mosley and the pair seem to make quite the dynamic duo from what we've seen so far. What was it like playing alongside Sam Claflin for that role? And what can you tell us about their relationship as it develops?
Sam, I hope like me, is the opposite of his character in the sense he is just the nicest person and really nice to be around and a joy to have on set. He's really not like Oswald at all, obviously. I loved working with him because he's quite a similar actor to me.
I think we both just want to turn up and have a nice time. And it's not too emotionally laborious. And so I think we clicked really, really well, in terms of that dynamic because we both just wanted to really have fun with the characters.
[The real couple got married] at the Goebbels house, but Hitler was there as a guest of honour, which is obviously mad. I think you'll see a development of the dynamic of the relationship which I enjoy.
Diana really is kind of driving things, and it's not that Oswald's not clever and not capable, but when I was approaching the role, I thought it would be quite fun, hopefully in just tiny moments, just to try and add in an element of 'He's a bit of an idiot, and actually I'm the one that kind of has all my shit together and knows what what needs to be done," if that makes sense.
I think there's a certain element in their relationship, which is Oswald having a bit of a fit because something's gone wrong and Diana's like 'Darling, shut up. It's fine.' I think you'll see more of that and I think you'll see more proof that Diana was extremely politically active and had her fingers in a lot of pies, and was very driven in terms of achieving things politically.
I think she was very interested in being at the forefront of a movement, and I think that that's probably what attracted her to that movement was the idea of power and being able to change the world in some way.
Obviously, her idea of changing the world is completely different to my idea of changing the world but nonetheless, that was what she was attracted to. I hope you'll see a bit of that. A bit of her political ambition. I think they're pretty great double act.
Diana seems very enamoured by Tommy for the same reasons...
Yeah, I had to ask myself the question a lot of what is it that attracts her to Tommy, and what is it that makes her so fascinated by him? I actually think it's the same reason as why she would have been fascinated by Oswald.
I think you have these two men who are polarised in terms of their views and their worldviews, but they're both powerful. They're both charismatic. They both have people's attention and have the ability to get stuff done, and I think that's what she would have gotten off on, being around that feeling of power.
So I think weirdly, Tommy and Oswald might represent as the same thing to her, if that makes sense. I think she's probably more attracted to the people and the power rather than even the political ideology. I think if you'd put her in another time period with a different political environment, I think she could have been extreme in a completely different way.
I can't speak for her, obviously, this is a real person who is now dead, but my idea as an actor was she was someone who wanted to change things and be powerful. That's why it was quite fun to play because it's rare you get to play such extreme characters really.
A lot of people have asked me, "Were you scared to play someone so politically outrageous?" In a way I was, but at the same time, it's actually important to remind ourselves of how bad things can get, and how extreme things can get.
Unless you have those parts of stories, we might end up making the same mistakes again. It's important to remember how easy it is for these kind of ideologies to worm their way into people's heads like a virus and take over.
In a way it's good timing to be telling this story with Peaky. Obviously it's a it's a TV show, it's meant to be fun, but I think the political energy at the moment is weirdly quite similar. It's very polarised and it's quite scary. I think it's good to be reminded of where those things can end up in a very serious way.
A Peaky Blinders movie has been confirmed. Would you be willing to return to the franchise again if you were offered?
Oh, yeah! I love being part of Peaky, but I don't think anyone knows yet really what's happening with film. I think Steve [Knight, show creator] has written it in his head, but I don't think anyone really knows for sure what's happening. So yeah, of course I'd love to be part of it.
Obviously Diana was a real person who lived until she was 90. Everybody knows that. So in a very real sense she lived for a long time, but it's just whether or not Steve wants her to be part of the Peaky world moving forward. I have no idea yet but I would love to be part of it.
Peaky Blinders series 6 airs on Sundays at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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