Annabelle Wallis Says ‘Peaky Blinders’ Creator Regrets Killing Grace Shelby
The actor also opens up about working with Cillian Murphy, Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe, her controversial Unabomber role, and a possible reunion with James Wan.
Annabelle Wallis says Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has admitted he regrets killing off Grace Shelby, the character who became one of the most beloved figures in the BBC crime drama.
Wallis played Grace, an undercover Irish police officer who infiltrated Tommy Shelby’s world before falling in love with Cillian Murphy’s troubled gangster. Grace was killed at the beginning of Season 3, long before the series became the global phenomenon it would eventually become after finding a much larger audience on Netflix.
Speaking about the decision in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Wallis said Knight has repeatedly told her he would have handled Grace differently if he had known how strongly audiences would connect with her relationship with Tommy.
“I think I messed up with Grace,” Knight told Wallis, according to the actor.
Wallis said Knight explained that the early seasons of Peaky Blinders were made before anyone could have predicted the show’s eventual cultural impact.
“He has always said to me, ‘I think I messed up with Grace. If I had known Grace and Tommy would be a dynamic that people longed for all these years later, I would’ve perhaps done something very different,’” Wallis said.
Grace Shelby became more important after her death
When Grace was killed, Peaky Blinders was still building its audience. Wallis said the series was not particularly popular when it originally aired on the BBC, meaning major creative decisions were made without the benefit of knowing how intensely viewers would eventually respond to the characters.
Netflix helped change that trajectory, with the series gaining a much larger international audience in the seasons that followed.
Wallis believes Grace’s death ultimately became an important part of Tommy’s story, even if Knight now wishes he had made a different choice.
The actress pointed to a fan vote for the show’s favorite scene, in which Grace sings to Tommy in a pub. She said the chemistry between her and Murphy was not something the show’s creators could have anticipated when Grace was initially introduced.
“They had no idea what they were going to do with Grace at first,” Wallis said, explaining that the character’s role expanded after the production team saw the chemistry in the footage.
Grace later returned as an apparition in Season 5, allowing Wallis to briefly revisit the character.
Wallis never watched ‘The Immortal Man’
Despite her connection to the franchise, Wallis revealed that she has not watched Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, the feature-length continuation starring Murphy.
When asked about the film, Wallis simply responded: “I didn’t watch it.”
She said she remains close to members of the original Peaky Blinders cast and still has fond memories of the show’s early seasons. Wallis also suggested that some viewers may have been hoping for a stronger connection to the characters from the earlier part of the series.
For Wallis, however, the Peaky Blinders world remains firmly associated with the creative vision of Knight and the original ensemble.
Why Wallis keeps getting paired with Hollywood’s biggest personalities
Grace Shelby is only one of several roles that have placed Wallis opposite larger-than-life male stars.
Her credits include working with Tom Cruise in The Mummy, Russell Crowe in The Loudest Voice and Unabomber, Jason Statham, Jude Law and Sacha Baron Cohen. Wallis says she has gradually realized that there is a common thread in how she approaches those collaborations.
Rather than being intimidated by a famous actor’s public image, she tries to get beyond it.
“I want to connect to who they really are in their essence,” Wallis said. “There’s no escaping it.”
She attributes part of that instinct to her childhood in Portugal, where she describes herself as a tomboy who rode horses and competed in motocross. Growing up in a house filled with children, including her brother and his friends, also taught her to be comfortable around strong personalities.
Wallis said that dynamic has become an unexpected part of her acting identity.
“People say, ‘Annabelle’s great with these big alpha males,’” she said. “I think I’m a strong woman, and I always try to be equal to those I work with.”
‘Unabomber’ brought Wallis and Crowe together again
Wallis is currently appearing opposite Crowe in Netflix’s Unabomber, marking another collaboration between the two actors.
She plays Christiana Morgan, a psychologist and collaborator of Harvard professor Henry Murray, played by Crowe. The film examines the controversial psychological experiments conducted on teenage Ted Kaczynski, who later became known as the Unabomber.
Kaczynski participated in the study when he was 16. Wallis believes the experience had a lasting psychological effect on him, although Kaczynski himself rejected the idea that the experiment contributed to his later crimes.
Wallis said she struggled with Morgan’s role in the experiment and believes the character would have carried guilt over what happened.
“How could you not?” Wallis said when asked whether Morgan might have felt guilty about subjecting a teenager to the study.
She also described Morgan as a complicated woman who operated within a male-dominated academic environment while maintaining an unconventional personal life.
A possible James Wan reunion?
Wallis may also have another major collaboration on the horizon.
She previously worked with director James Wan on Annabelle and Malignant. Annabelle became a huge commercial success, while Malignant developed a devoted following despite its pandemic-era release.
According to Wallis, Wan recently sent her a cryptic message suggesting that another project could be coming.
“Annabelle, watch this space. I’m about to tell you something,” Wan reportedly wrote to her.
Wallis said she would happily work with him again.
“He might ask me to trust him again, and I bloody will,” she said.
For now, Wallis remains open to moving between genres rather than committing herself to one particular type of role. Her recent work in Unabomber continues that pattern, putting her in another complicated story built around powerful personalities and morally difficult choices.
And while Grace Shelby may be gone from the Peaky Blinders timeline, Wallis’ comments suggest that the character’s impact on both Tommy Shelby and the show’s audience has lasted far longer than anyone involved could have predicted.
