Cillian Murphy pays tribute to his ‘Peaky Blinders’ co-star Helen McCrory after her death at 52

Cillian Murphy has paid tribute to the “gifted” actress Helen McCrory, who has died aged 52. The actor labelled his Peaky Blinders co-star as a “beautiful, caring, funny, compassionate human being”.

Her husband, fellow actor Damian Lewis, said McCrory died “peacefully at home” after a “heroic battle with cancer”.

“She died as she lived. Fearlessly,” Lewis wrote on Twitter. “God we love her and know how lucky we are to have had her in our lives. She blazed so brightly. Go now, Little One, into the air, and thank you.”

McCrory was a hugely respected actor, making her mark by playing a succession of formidable and sometimes fearsome women.

She played the matriarch of a crime family on Peaky Blinders and the scheming Voldemort ally Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies.

Murphy, who plays the central role of gangland boss Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, set in the early 20th-century English underworld, said he was “broken-hearted to lose such a dear friend”.

“Helen was a beautiful, caring, funny, compassionate human being,” he said in a statement. “She was also a gifted actor — fearless and magnificent.

“She elevated and made humane every scene, every character she played,” Murphy said. “It was a privilege to have worked with this brilliant woman, to have shared so many laughs over the years. I will dearly miss my pal. My love and thoughts are with Damian and her family.”

Lewis, star of the TV series Homeland and Billions, and McCrory married in 2007 and had two children.

Sunday Independent