Everything about Cillian Murphy totally explained
Cillian Murphy (born
25 May 1976) is an
Irish film and
theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles
and distinctive blue eyes.
A native of
Cork, Murphy began his performing career as a
rock musician. After turning down a record deal, he made his professional acting debut in the play
Disco Pigs in 1996. He went on to star in Irish and
UK film and stage productions throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, first coming to international attention in 2003 as the hero in the
post-apocalyptic film
28 Days Later. Murphy's best-known roles are as villains in two 2005 blockbusters: the
Scarecrow in the
superhero film Batman Begins, and Jackson Rippner in the
thriller Red Eye. Next came two contrasting, widely acclaimed starring roles: his
Golden Globe Award-nominated performance as
transgendered outcast "Kitten" in 2005's
Breakfast on Pluto and a turn as a 1920s Irish revolutionary in 2006
Palme d'Or winner
The Wind That Shakes the Barley. In 2008, Murphy stars in the romantic drama
The Edge of Love and makes a cameo as Scarecrow in the Batman sequel,
The Dark Knight.
A resident of London since 2001, Murphy often works in or near London and has no desire to move to
Hollywood. Uncomfortable on the celebrity circuit, he customarily gives interviews about his work, but doesn't appear on television talk shows or discuss details of his private life with the press.
Early life and music
Born in
Douglas and raised in
Ballintemple, two suburbs of
Cork, Cillian Murphy is the eldest of four children. His father, Brendan, works for the
Irish Department of Education and his mother is a
French teacher. Not only are his parents educators, but his aunts and uncles are also teachers, as was his grandfather. Musicianship also runs in the family, and Murphy started playing music and writing songs at age ten. His English teacher, the poet and novelist
William Wall, encouraged him to pursue acting, The
Beatles-obsessed pair named their most successful band The Sons of Mr. Greengenes, after a
1969 song by another idol,
Frank Zappa. Murphy sang and played guitar in the band, which he's said "specialised in wacky lyrics and endless guitar solos." In 1996, He later observed, "I was unbelievably cocky and had nothing to lose, and it suited the part, I suppose." Originally slated to run three weeks in Cork, and Murphy left university and in the
BBC television miniseries adaptation of
The Way We Live Now. In addition to
Disco Pigs, he starred in many other plays, including
Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing,
Neil LaBute's
The Shape of Things, and
Chekhov's
The Seagull; Murphy considers this stage work to have been his "training ground." During this period, he moved from Cork, relocating first to
Dublin for a few years, then to London in 2001.
Murphy's onscreen performance in
Disco Pigs caught the eye of director
Danny Boyle when casting the lead for
28 Days Later. and a major success worldwide, putting Murphy before a mass audience for the first time. His performance as pandemic survivor Jim earned him nominations for Best Newcomer at the 2003
Empire Awards and Breakthrough Male Performance at the
2004 MTV Movie Awards.
ComingSoon.net's review of the film said, "Cillian Murphy is a superb find... and he gives a breakout performance as a man torn apart by the new world into which he's awakened."
In late 2003, Murphy starred as a lovelorn, hapless supermarket stocker who plots a bank heist with
Colin Farrell in
Intermission, 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). Murphy also appeared in supporting roles in his first Hollywood films,
Cold Mountain and
Girl with a Pearl Earring. For the latter film, he learned to chop meat in an abattoir to prepare for his role as a butcher, even though he's a vegetarian. In 2004, he toured Ireland in the titular role of
The Playboy of the Western World, a
Druid Theatre Company production under the direction of
Garry Hynes, who had previously directed Murphy in
Seán O'Casey's
Juno and the Paycock and
John Murphy's
The Country Boy, also for Druid. In
Wes Craven's
Red Eye, Murphy starred as an operative in an assassination plot who terrorizes
Rachel McAdams on an overnight flight.
New York Times film critic
Manohla Dargis asserted that Murphy made "a picture-perfect villain" and that his "baby blues look cold enough to freeze water and his wolfish leer suggests its own terrors."
Murphy received several awards nominations for his 2005 bad guy turns, among them a nomination as Best Villain at the
2006 MTV Movie Awards for
Batman Begins. Entertainment Weekly ranked him among its 2005 "Summer MVPs", a cover story list of ten entertainers with outstanding breakthrough performances. The New Yorker's
David Denby wrote, "Cillian Murphy, who has angelic looks that can turn sinister, is one of the most elegantly seductive monsters in recent movies."
In late 2005 (early 2006 in Europe), Murphy starred as Patrick "Kitten" Braden, a
transgendered Irish orphan in search of his mother, in
Neil Jordan's dramedy
Breakfast on Pluto, based on the novel of the same title by
Patrick McCabe. Murphy had auditioned for the role in 2001, and though Jordan liked him for the part,
The Crying Game director was hesitant to revisit transgender and
I.R.A. issues. For several years, Murphy lobbied Jordan to make the film before the actor became too old to play the part. In 2004, Murphy prepared for the role by meeting with a
transvestite who dressed him and took him clubbing with other transvestites. Taking notice of the group's quick wit, Murphy attributed it to their constantly having to respond to insults from prejudiced people around them. While even lukewarm reviews of
Breakfast on Pluto still tended to praise Murphy's performance highly, a few critics dissented:
The Village Voice, which panned the film, found him "unconvincing" and overly cute.
Murphy was nominated for a
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for
Breakfast on Pluto and won the
Irish Film and Television Academy Best Actor Award.
Premiere cited his performance as Kitten in their "The 24 Finest Performances of 2005" feature. A late 2005
Back Stage feature labeled Murphy "a chameleonic performer, a character actor trapped in a leading man's bone structure." and became the most successful Irish independent film at the Irish box office.
Scotland on Sunday commented, "Cillian Murphy ... exudes a doe-eyed sensitivity that's central to our emotional involvement in the character's development. He isn't a macho figure itching for a fight, but a man of peace, reluctantly drawn to the use of force. When he makes a commitment to Irish independence, it's unyielding and entirely believable."
GQ UK presented Murphy with their 2006 Actor of the Year award for his work in
The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
Recent roles and the future
Murphy returned to the stage from November 2006 to February 2007 in the lead role of John Kolvenbach's play
Love Song, opposite
Neve Campbell, in London's
West End. In April 2007 (July in North America), he starred onscreen as a physicist-astronaut charged with reigniting the sun in the
sci-fi movie
Sunshine, which re-teamed him with director
Danny Boyle. and was said be coming out on
Valentine's Day 2008, but it never appeared in theaters, as the film ended up going straight to DVD. the film comes out in the UK in June. He will also make a brief reappearance as the Scarecrow in
The Dark Knight, the sequel to
Batman Begins, which will be released in July. In 2009 comes the biopic
Hippie Hippie Shake (again alongside Sienna Miller), in which Murphy stars as
Richard Neville,
Murphy has two new screen roles scheduled for production. In May 2008, he shoots
Peacock, a psychological thriller about a man with a split personality who fools people into believing he's also his own wife;
Ellen Page co-stars as a woman from his past. Also in 2008, he shoots another biopic,, paired with
Al Pacino, an actor with whom Murphy has said he hoped to work.) as awakening him to the potential power of film acting. which shoots in late summer 2008.
As for future roles, Murphy has long wanted to portray a cowboy in a
Western, because as a child, he enjoyed watching
John Wayne movies with his father. Murphy would like to work with director
Michel Gondry someday; among the actors he hopes to work with are
Johnny Depp,
Meryl Streep and
Philip Seymour Hoffman. Not wishing to be typecast or repeat himself, Murphy says he doesn't want to play any more villains. Although he doesn't want to move to Los Angeles because of the cultural differences
Personal life
Murphy married his long-time and
Liam Neeson, looking up to the latter like a "surrogate movie dad." But primarily, Murphy's close friends are those he made before becoming a star.
Music is still an important part of Murphy's life. In 2004, he said, "The only extravagant thing about my lifestyle is my stereo system, buying music and going to gigs."
Though raised
Catholic before turning
agnostic in his teens, Murphy ultimately became an
atheist after researching his role as a nuclear physicist/astronaut in the science fiction film
Sunshine. He is a longtime
vegetarian, not due to any moral objection to the killing of animals, but because of qualms about unhealthy
agribusiness practices. Son-in-law to
John J. McGuinness, a
TD in the
Irish parliament, Murphy participated in the 2007
Rock the Vote Ireland campaign targeting young voters for the general election.
Stage and screen credits
Feature films
| Year |
Film |
Role |
Notes |
| 1998 |
The Tale of Sweety Barrett |
Pat the Barman |
| Intermission |
John |
| 2008 |
The Dark Knight |
The Scarecrow |
|
| |
Stan Lauryssens |
| 1999 |
Eviction |
Brendan McBride |
|
| 2000 |
Filleann an Feall (also known as The Treachery Returns) |
| 2006 |
The Silent City |
unnamed |
|
Television
Further Information
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