Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphy (/ˈkɪliən/ KILL-ee-ən;[1] born 25 May 1976) is an Irish actor. He made his professional debut in Enda Walsh's 1996 play Disco Pigs, a role he later reprised in the 2001 screen adaptation. His early film credits include the horror film 28 Days Later (2002), the dark comedy Intermission (2003), the thriller Red Eye (2005), the Irish war drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), and the science fiction thriller Sunshine (2007). He played a transgender Irish woman in the comedy-drama Breakfast on Pluto (2005), which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.
For the actor born Cillian Damien Murphy, see Killian Scott.
Cillian Murphy
Murphy began his collaboration with filmmaker Christopher Nolan in 2005, playing the Scarecrow in The Dark Knight trilogy (2005–2012) as well as appearing in Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017). He gained greater prominence for his role as Tommy Shelby in the BBC period drama series Peaky Blinders (2013–2022) and for starring in the horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II (2020). Murphy portrayed J. Robert Oppenheimer in Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023), for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor, along with a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award.
In 2011, Murphy won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for the one-man play Misterman. In 2020, The Irish Times named him one of the greatest Irish film actors of all time.[2]
Career
1996–2002: Theatre work and early roles
Murphy pressured Pat Kiernan until he got an audition at Corcadorca Theatre Company, and in September 1996, he made his professional acting debut on the stage, playing the part of a volatile Cork teenager in Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs.[8] Walsh recalled meeting and discovering Murphy: "There was something about him – he was incredibly enigmatic and he would walk into a room with real presence and you'd go, "My God". It had nothing to do with those bloody eyes that everyone's going on about all the time."[12] Murphy observed, "I was unbelievably cocky and had nothing to lose, and it suited the part, I suppose".[13] Originally intended to run for three weeks in Cork,[8] Disco Pigs ended up touring throughout Europe, Canada and Australia for two years, and Murphy left both university[4] and his band.[9] Though he had intended to go back to playing music, he secured representation after his first agent caught a performance of Disco Pigs, and his acting career began to take off.[14]
He starred in many other theatre productions, including Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1998), The Country Boy, and Juno and the Paycock (both 1999).[15] He began appearing in independent films such as On the Edge (2001), and in short films, including Filleann an Feall (2000) and Watchmen (2001).[16] He also reprised his role for the film adaption of Disco Pigs (2001) and appeared in the BBC television mini-series adaptation of The Way We Live Now.[14][17][18] During this period, he moved from Cork, relocating first to Dublin for a few years, then to London in 2001.[19] In 2002, Murphy starred as Adam in a theatre production of Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. Writing for The Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole praised Murphy's performance, "Murphy measures out his metamorphosis with an impressive subtlety and intelligence".[20]
2002–2004: 28 Days Later and breakthrough
Murphy was cast in the lead role in Danny Boyle's horror film 28 Days Later (2002). He portrayed pandemic survivor Jim, who is "perplexed to find himself alone in the desolate, post-apocalyptic world" after waking from a coma in a London hospital.[21] Casting director Gail Stevens suggested that Boyle audition Murphy for the role, having been impressed with his performance in Disco Pigs. Stevens stated that it was only after seeing his slender physique during filming that they decided to feature him fully nude at the beginning of the film.[22][23] She recalled that Murphy was shy on set with the tendency to look slightly away from the camera, but enthused that he had a "dreamy, slightly de-energised, floating quality that is fantastic for the film". Released in the UK in late 2002, by the following July, 28 Days Later had become a sleeper hit in North America, and success worldwide, putting Murphy in front of a mass audience for the first time.[24][25] His performance earned him a nomination for Best Newcomer at the 8th Empire Awards, and Breakthrough Male Performance at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards.[26][27] Murphy professed that he considered the film to be much deeper than a zombie or horror film, expressing surprise at the film's success, and that American audiences responded well to its content and violence.[28] Murphy said, "The film did so well. And you watch zombie stuff [now], we were the first people to make zombies run, and [that] changed everything. It has a very special place in my heart, that movie."[29]
In 2003, Murphy played the role of Konstantine in a stage production of Chekhov's The Seagull at the Edinburgh International Festival. He said that he wanted to play Konstantine because the character "goes on this amazing journey through the play [...] he comes to realise there's no point being an iconoclastic writer just for the sake of it, and that the search for new forms has to have something behind it".[30]
Murphy starred as a lovelorn, hapless supermarket stocker who plots a bank heist with Colin Farrell in Intermission (2003), which became the highest-grossing Irish independent film in Irish box office history (until The Wind That Shakes the Barley broke the record in 2006).[31] Reflecting on his roles in 28 Days Later and the "sad-sack Dublin shelf-stacker" in Intermission, Sarah Lyall of the International Herald Tribune stated that Murphy brought "fluent ease to the roles he takes on, a graceful and wholly believable intensity. His delicate good looks have, as much as his acting prowess, caused people to mark him as Ireland's next Colin Farrell, albeit one who seems less likely to be caught tomcatting around or brawling drunkenly at premieres."[32] He had a minor supporting role in the successful Hollywood period drama Cold Mountain (2003). He portrayed a deserting soldier who shares a grim scene with Jude Law's character, and was on location in Romania for only a week. Murphy stated that it was a "massive production", remarking that director Anthony Minghella was the calmest director he'd ever met.[28] Murphy also had a role as a butcher in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) with Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth.[33]
In 2004, Murphy toured Ireland with the Druid Theatre Company, in The Playboy of the Western World (playing the character of Christy Mahon) under the direction of Garry Hynes—who had previously directed Murphy back in 1999 in the theatre productions of Juno and the Paycock—and also in The Country Boy.[34][35]
Public image
Reserved and private, Murphy professes a lack of interest in the celebrity scene, finding the red carpet experience "a challenge" that he does not "want to overcome".[111] He intentionally practises a lifestyle that will not interest the tabloids, stating, "I haven't created any controversy, I don't sleep around, I don't go and fall down drunk".[5] He prefers not to speak about his life outside of acting and did not appear on any television talk shows until 2010, when he was a guest on Ireland's Late Late Show to promote Perrier's Bounty, though he still remained reserved.[112][113]
In 2015, Murphy was named one of GQ's 50 best-dressed men,[114] and in 2024, he was announced as the new face of Italian luxury fashion company Versace.[115]
Activism
Murphy participated in the 2007 Rock the Vote Ireland campaign, targeting young voters for the general election,[116] and campaigning for the rights of the homeless with the organisation Focus Ireland.[117] In 2011, he became a patron of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at the National University of Ireland Galway. He is closely associated with the work of Professor Pat Dolan Director UCFRC and UNESCO Chair in Children, Youth and Civic Engagement. In February 2012, he wrote a message of support to the former Vita Cortex workers involved in a sit-in at their plant, congratulating them for "highlighting [what] is hugely important to us all as a nation".[118][119] Murphy was a supporter of the 2018 Irish referendum to repeal the eighth amendment of the constitution that restricted access to abortions, appearing on The Blindboy Podcast to urge men to support women and vote in favour of the referendum.[120][121][122][123]
Personal life
In 2004, Murphy married his longtime girlfriend Yvonne McGuinness, whom he met at one of his rock band's shows in 1996.[124] They lived in Dublin until 2001, when they moved to London so his wife could attend the Royal College of Art. After 14 years, they moved back to Dublin in 2015. They have two sons, born in 2005 and 2007.[125][126]
Murphy was raised Catholic and had been verging on agnosticism until researching his role as a physicist and astronaut in the 2007 film Sunshine, which confirmed his atheism.[127][128] In 2019, he said the Catholic faith still shaped his morality.[129][130]
He was a vegetarian for around 15 years, which he said happened because he was "worried about getting mad cow disease" rather than a moral decision.[131] He also had qualms about unhealthy agribusiness practices.[132] He began eating meat again to bulk up for his role in Peaky Blinders.[131] In a 2022 interview, he said he had returned to vegetarianism.[133]