Ruben Oliver

Ruben Oliver is the painter Tommy Shelby brings in to capture his likeness, a man who moves through Small Heath's violence with an artist's detachment. Unhurried and observant, he studies Tommy as a subject rather than a threat, more interested in what's underneath the suit than in the danger around it.

Siddig plays him with a stillness that's rare in this show's world of tempers and threats — he simply refuses to be intimidated, which makes his scenes with Cillian Murphy crackle with unusual quiet. As an outsider who sees Tommy clinically, he becomes a mirror the character can't easily control.