Grand Duke Leon Petrovich Romanov

Grand Duke Leon Petrovich Romanov arrives among the White Russian émigrés Tommy Shelby is courting, all inherited grandeur and wounded pride. He carries himself like a man who still expects the world to bow, even in exile, and he treats the Peaky Blinders' Birmingham as beneath him while needing exactly what they can offer.

Jan Bijvoet plays him with a brittle, theatrical hauteur that makes every scene feel like a negotiation between two kinds of fraud — Tommy's criminal ambition and Leon's aristocratic performance of legitimacy. The character works because his title never quite explains him; you're always watching to see what's underneath the bow and the accent.