Why Netflix's Peaky Blinders Movie Recast Duke Shelby With Barry Keoghan

The "Peaky Blinders" timeline undergoes quite the change-up in "Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man." Six years pass between Season 6 of the crime drama and the follow-up film. None of the show's central figures show off the ravages of age more than Erasmus "Duke" Shelby, Tommy Shelby's (Cillian Murphy) eldest son. In both halves of Season 6 of "Peaky Blinders," Duke is played by Conrad Khan. There, he is a teenager. In "The Immortal Man," he's fully grown and played by Barry Keoghan. The switch was mandated by the passage of the years between the two outings, per series creator Steven Knight.

"The time jump dictated who we were looking for, but equally, it's one of those castings that the minute the first rushes you look at, you realize it couldn't have been anybody else," he explained in an interview with Digital Spy, speaking of Keoghan. While Knight was incredibly pleased by the casting of Keoghan for "Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man," Keoghan won't be playing Duke in the upcoming "Peaky Blinders" spin-off centered around the character — but since Duke has already experienced enough tumult for four men, a little change in appearance shouldn't be too big of a hardship on his fans.

Tommy has been living in isolation for a while when "Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man" begins; mourning the passing of his brother, Arthur (Paul Anderson) as well as a host of other family deaths. Now he works on his biography and stays out of the way. Duke has stepped in for his dad and is leading the family gang, but Tommy is alarmed to learn about Duke's leadership choices and lack of discipline.

The boy appears to falls in league with fascist leader John Beckett (Tim Roth), who wants to use the Blinders to distribute £70 million in counterfeit cash in England through the criminal underground. Tommy comes out of hiding and begins leading the Blinders again, and father and son bond. Duke reveals at the last minute that he's been a double-agent all along and never intended to allow the Blinders to be used to spread German currency. Father and son team up to claim bloody revenge on the fascists, only for Tommy Shelby to die, leaving fans in mourning. His passing puts Duke once again in charge of the Blinders, and now he's completely orphaned, to boot.

Duke Shelby will receive yet another change of face when the untitled-as-of-this-writing "Peaky Blinders" sequel series debuts; he'll be played by Jamie Bell in that outing. Also included in the cast will be Charlie Heaton, Jessica Brown Findlay, Lashana Lynch, and Lucy Karczewski, all in unknown roles as of this writing.

Barry Keoghan declined to reveal to Variety why he's not going to appear in the latest chapter of the "Peaky Blinders" saga, but did tell them how and why he selected the role Duke Shelby in the first place. "I carefully, cautiously pick because I just want to enjoy, and I want to heal, I want to tell, I want to find, I want to explore. I want to discover all of those things while I'm making a movie with people who are like-minded," he said.

While Keoghan noted that he'd enjoyed making "Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man" and had an incredible experience doing so, he'll be quite busy in the coming years. He'll be playing Ringo Starr in a four-part Beatles biopic, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's likely he couldn't keep playing Duke due to his overloaded schedule. Embodied by Keoghan or not, it's clear that Duke will continue to evolve as time goes on — and long after the death of his dear old da.