{"id":2404639,"date":"2026-05-06T14:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T14:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2404639"},"modified":"2026-05-06T14:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T14:10:22","slug":"viral-tiktok-explains-what-actors-are-really-smoking-on-screen-and-its-not-cigarettes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/viral-tiktok-explains-what-actors-are-really-smoking-on-screen-and-its-not-cigarettes\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral TikTok Explains What Actors Are Really Smoking On Screen &#8211; And It&#8217;s Not Cigarettes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>If you\u2019ve ever sat through an episode of Peaky Blinders, you might find yourself wondering how the heck Cillian Murphy didn\u2019t destroy his lungs playing the infamous Thomas Shelby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>Yup, there\u2019s rarely a scene where the titular character isn\u2019t puffing on a cigarette \u2013 so, what\u2019s actually going on? Are they just destroying packets of cigarettes a la Dot Cotton actress June Brown? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>Well, one TikToker has shared what our fave celebs are actually smoking \u2013 and it turns out things are far more herbal. (No, not that type of herb, before you get excited.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>Director David Ma (<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@davidwma\/video\/6989403807457250566?sender_device=pc&amp;sender_web_id=7009671807221876230&amp;is_from_webapp=v1&amp;is_copy_url=0\" target=\"_blank\" role=\"link\" class=\" js-entry-link cet-external-link\" data-vars-item-name=\"@davidwma)\" data-vars-item-type=\"text\" data-vars-unit-name=\"69fb4a2fe4b01c0d1112d61b\" data-vars-unit-type=\"buzz_body\" data-vars-target-content-id=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@davidwma\/video\/6989403807457250566?sender_device=pc&amp;sender_web_id=7009671807221876230&amp;is_from_webapp=v1&amp;is_copy_url=0\" data-vars-target-content-type=\"url\" data-vars-type=\"web_external_link\" data-vars-subunit-name=\"article_body\" data-vars-subunit-type=\"component\" data-vars-position-in-subunit=\"0\">@davidwma)<\/a> often shares the truth behind Hollywood trickery and in a video which has amassed a whopping 2.2 million likes, the film expert has revealed what stars are smoking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>David explained: \u201cMost of the time, when you see actors smoking on screen we use something called prop cigarettes. They\u2019re herbal cigarettes that are tobacco and nicotine and additive-free.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>Well, that explains why we\u2019ve not got hundreds of actors out there with hacking coughs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>\u201cThey also look quite real in an actor\u2019s fingers,\u201d David added, sharing that Jon Hamm went through packs of these while filming Mad Men.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>\u201cWhen you cut one open you\u2019ll notice there isn\u2019t tobacco inside, it looks more like herb \u2013 not that \u2019erb \u2013 but you know, rose petal, clover and tea leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>What about smoke? According to David this tends to be added in post-production, usually with CGI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n<p>And as for Cillian? Turns out he went through <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/arts-entertainment\/tv\/peaky-blinders-cillian-murphy-has-smoked-over-3-000-herbal-cigarettes-playing-tommy-shelby-a7000006.html\" target=\"_blank\" role=\"link\" class=\" js-entry-link cet-external-link\" data-vars-item-name=\"a whopping 3,000 of the fake herbal cigarettes\" data-vars-item-type=\"text\" data-vars-unit-name=\"69fb4a2fe4b01c0d1112d61b\" data-vars-unit-type=\"buzz_body\" data-vars-target-content-id=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/arts-entertainment\/tv\/peaky-blinders-cillian-murphy-has-smoked-over-3-000-herbal-cigarettes-playing-tommy-shelby-a7000006.html\" data-vars-target-content-type=\"url\" data-vars-type=\"web_external_link\" data-vars-subunit-name=\"article_body\" data-vars-subunit-type=\"component\" data-vars-position-in-subunit=\"1\">a whopping 3,000 of the fake herbal cigarettes<\/a> while portraying Tommy Shelby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v3.3&amp;appId=238320442863988&amp;autoLogAppEvents=1\" async=\"async\" defer=\"defer\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.huffingtonpost.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve ever sat through an episode of Peaky Blinders, you might find yourself wondering how the heck Cillian Murphy didn\u2019t destroy his lungs playing the infamous Thomas Shelby. Yup, there\u2019s rarely a scene where the titular character isn\u2019t puffing on a cigarette \u2013 so, what\u2019s actually going on? Are they just destroying packets of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2404640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[25538,355611,40640,382877],"class_list":["post-2404639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-actors","tag-behind-the-scenes","tag-cillian-murphy","tag-trivia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Viral-TikTok-Explains-What-Actors-Are-Really-Smoking-On-Screen.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2404639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2404641,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404639\/revisions\/2404641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2404640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2404639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2404639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2404639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}