Col. Ben Younger

Colonel Ben Younger arrives in the Peaky Blinders' orbit as an American officer turned operator, poised and unreadable, brought into Tommy Shelby's expanding business across the Atlantic. He speaks softly, measures every room he enters, and gives away little about what he actually wants — only that he is playing a longer, colder game than most men at the table.

Kingsley Ben-Adir plays him with a stillness that unsettles rather than reassures, letting silence do the threatening. The show gives him just enough restraint and intelligence to feel like Tommy's equal rather than another gangster to be outmanoeuvred, and that parity — two controlled men reading each other — is what makes their scenes crackle.