Helen McCrory death: Peaky Blinders’ Cillian Murphy and Sam Neill lead tributes to ‘dear friend’

Helen McCrory, the stage and screen star known for her roles in the Harry Potter films and the BBC series Peaky Blinders, has died from cancer aged 52.

Actor Damian Lewis, who married McCrory in 2007, shared a statement on Twitter announcing that she had died peacefully at home after “a heroic battle with cancer”. McCrory’s cancer diagnosis had been kept private from the public.

“I’m heartbroken to announce that after a heroic battle with cancer, the beautiful and mighty woman that is Helen McCrory has died peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family,” he wrote in a Twitter post.

“She died as she lived,” he continued. “Fearlessly. God we love her and know how lucky we are to have had her in our lives. She blazed so brightly. Go now, Little One, into the air, and thank you.”

Tributes from her Peaky Blinders co-stars flooded in, with Cillian Murphy saying he was broken-hearted to lose a dear friend.

"Helen was a beautiful, caring, funny, compassionate human being,” Murphy said.

Sam Neill said she was “Riotously funny and so damn cool”.

“That brilliant woman- the greatest of actors. I so loved our time on #PeakyBlinders. She was witty, kind, skilled,” he said in a tweet.