Tim Roth is British acting royalty. A Quentin Tarantino regular, he's appeared in movies and shows for the legendary likes of David Lynch, Mike Leigh and Alan Clarke. Which is why his less-celebrated turns as Emil Blonsky/The Abomination in the MCU and as chief villain Thade in Tim Burton's maligned Planet of the Apes remake may seem like outliers on his CV. Turns out theres' a good reason for that.
"That I did originally to make my kids embarrassed at school," Roth tells GamesRadar+, referring to 2008 MCU black sheep The Incredible Hulk. "I did a couple of movies like that. I did Planet of the Apes for that [reason] as well, just to literally to embarrass him at school."
Planet of the Apes may have been a one-and-done for Roth (despite that baffling ending), but the actor did reprise Blonsky in the MCU for 2022's She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Given the 14-year gap between appearances, Roth was as surprised as anyone to get the call from Marvel Studios.
"They just called me up and said: 'How'd you fancy…?' And I was like, 'What?!' And it was just so daft. But I liked Tatiana [Maslany]. She was fascinating to watch on set. She had so much on her plate and she was so in control of it. But she's also incredibly funny, and she's married to a guy [Brendan Hines] who was in a series that I did called Lie to Me years ago, so we had like a reunion when we were up there making it. And Mark Ruffalo is hilarious!"
Would Roth return for Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars? "Yeah, just go. Be fun," he says with a smile. For now, he appears as a villain of another kind in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. The feature-length follow-up to the beloved show, it puts Cillian Murphy's Tommy Shelby on a collision course with Roth's Beckett, a fascist spearheading a Nazi plot to sabotage the British economy during WW2 by pushing millions in forged banknotes on the country.
Initially envisioned as a toff, Roth brought Beckett down to Earth – a dark mirror version of Shelby's own working-class anti-hero. "It was originally written quite aristocratic, but he wouldn't be able to communicate with these guys at all," Roth explains. "It would defeat the object. And so I said, 'What about if he's like a geography teacher? You can chat with him and he's very nice. He's very reasonable. He's just trying to help.'" He feels that the mission that he is on is for the best of the country and, you know, the planet. It'll save lives. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?"
Also in conversation with GameRadar+, Cillian Murphy explained how The Immortal Man is the "natural conclusion" of Tommy Shelby's decades-spanning story, while franchise newbie Rebecca Ferguson says the new movie works as a "standalone film." Director Tom Harper also explains how The Immortal Man differs from the six-season show.
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is on limited theatrical release now, and streams on Netflix from March 20. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies, or fill out your watchlist with our list of the best Netflix movies.
