Cillian Murphy
Encyclopedia
Cillian Murphy icon is an Irish film and theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles and distinctive blue eyes and general sex appeal.
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 British 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: Scarecrow
in the superhero film
Batman Begins
(he reprised the role of Scarecrow in a small cameo
in The Dark Knight
), and Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye
. Next came two contrasting and acclaimed starring roles: his Golden Globe Award
-nominated performance as a glam
transgender
orphan teen in 2005's Breakfast on Pluto
and a turn as a 1920s Irish revolutionary in the 2006 Palme d'Or
winner, The Wind That Shakes the Barley
. In 2010, Murphy played Robert Fischer, corporate heir and the target of Leonardo DiCaprio
's dreamscape heist in the acclaimed blockbuster Inception
.
A resident of London since 2001, Murphy often works in or near the city and has expressed no desire to move to Hollywood
. Uncomfortable on the celebrity circuit, he customarily gives interviews about his work, but does not publicly discuss details of his private life and did not appear on a television talk show until 2010.
, 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.
Murphy was raised Roman Catholic and attended the Catholic school Presentation Brothers College
, where he did well academically but got into trouble often, sometimes getting suspended, until he decided in his fourth year that misbehaving was not worth the hassle. Not keen on sport, a major part of life at PBC, Murphy found that creative pursuits were not fully nurtured at the school. Still, it was there that he got his first taste of performing, when he participated in a drama module presented by Pat Kiernan, the director of the Corcadorca Theatre Company
. Murphy later described the experience as a "huge high" and a "fully alive" feeling that he set out to chase. His English teacher, the poet and novelist William Wall
, encouraged him to pursue acting, but at this stage, to Murphy, performing meant dreams of becoming a rock star.
In his late teens and early twenties, Murphy worked toward a career as a rock musician, playing guitar in several bands alongside his brother Páidi. 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 has said "specialised in wacky lyrics and endless guitar solos." In 1996, The Sons of Mr. Greengenes were offered a five-album record deal by Acid Jazz Records
, but they did not sign the contract. Because Murphy's brother was still in secondary school, their parents disapproved. Additionally, the contract offered little money and would have ceded the rights to Murphy's compositions to the record label.
Also in 1996, Murphy began studying law at University College Cork (UCC), but he failed his first year exams because, as he put it, he had "no ambitions to do it." Not only was he busy with his band, but he has admitted that he knew within days after starting at UCC that law was the wrong fit for him. Furthermore, after seeing Corcadorca's stage production of A Clockwork Orange
, directed by Kiernan, acting had begun to pique his interest. His first major role was in the UCC Drama Society's amateur production of Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme
, but, according to Murphy, his primary motivation then was to party and meet women, not to begin an acting career. Nonetheless, he began to transition away from working as a rock musician, about which he later remarked, "I think there's such a thing as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform."
's Disco Pigs
. 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, Disco Pigs ended up touring throughout Europe, Canada and Australia for two years, and Murphy left university and his band. 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.
From 1997 to 2003, Murphy starred in independent film
s, such as John Carney
's On the Edge, in short films, including the Irish/English language short Filleann an Feall, 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." Murphy also reprised his Disco Pigs role for the 2001 indie film version
by Kirsten Sheridan
, performing his original song "So New" over the closing credits and singing The Kinks
' "You Really Got Me
" in a pub karaoke scene. 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
. Released in the UK in late 2002, by the following July 28 Days Later had become a sleeper hit in America 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 8th 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 is 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.
, and Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye
. Originally asked to audition for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman
in Batman Begins, Murphy never saw himself as having the right physique for the superhero, but leapt at the chance to connect with director Christopher Nolan
. Though the lead went to Christian Bale
, Nolan was so impressed with Murphy that he gave him the supporting role of Dr. Crane, whose alter ego is supervillain
Scarecrow
. Nolan told Spin
, "He has the most extraordinary eyes, and I kept trying to invent excuses for him to take his glasses off in close-ups." 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 transgender
Irish orphan in search of her 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.
Against Breakfast on Pluto’s kaleidoscopic backdrop of 1970s glitter rock fashion, magic shows, red light districts and I.R.A. violence, Murphy transforms from androgynous teen to high drag
blond bombshell. The San Francisco Chronicles Ruthe Stein said of his performance, "Murphy projects enormous energy onscreen, as he's already shown in 28 Days Later... and Red Eye. He's supremely well cast as the androgynous Kitten ... [and] smoothly makes the transition from broad comedy to drama. He delivers Kitten's favorite line, 'Oh serious, serious, serious!' with the full implications of its dual meaning." 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. All three of his 2005 performances were honored by Entertainment Weekly, when they included him in their "Great Performances of 2005" year-end issue. A late 2005 Back Stage feature labeled Murphy "a chameleonic performer, a character actor trapped in a leading man's bone structure."
In 2006 (2007 in North America), he starred in Ken Loach
's film about the Irish War of Independence
and Civil War
, The Wind That Shakes the Barley
, which won the Palme d'Or
at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival
and became the most successful Irish independent film at the Irish box office. Loach, a social realist
who shoots films in sequence, is strict about casting actors from the areas where his films are set, rarely casting well-known faces. Because the film was set in Cork, Murphy was given a chance at the role of Damien O'Donovan, a young doctor turned revolutionary, but he had to audition six times before winning the part. Murphy's family goes back in Cork for many generations; during the time period in which The Wind That Shakes the Barley is set, his grandfather was shot at by British soldiers for playing Irish music.
Critic Denby described Murphy's approach to the part of Damien: "Murphy is normally very quiet in movies; he has attained his mystique as an actor by staring at people with baby-blue eyes. In this film, too, he has, at times, a deep stillness, but he has idiosyncratic moments as well, such as when Damien has to execute a teen-ager who has ratted on the I.R.A. Murphy, writhing, shoots the boy and stumbles away, nausea struggling against duty." Kenneth Turan
of the Los Angeles Times
wrote, "Murphy is especially good at playing the zealotry as well as the soul-searching and the regret, at showing us a man who is eaten up alive because he's forced to act in ways that are contrary to his background and his training." Scotland on Sunday
commented, "Cillian Murphy ... exudes a doe-eyed sensitivity that is central to our emotional involvement in the character's development. He is not 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 is 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.
, 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
. Murphy appeared opposite Lucy Liu
in Paul Soter
's romantic comedy Watching the Detectives; the indie film
premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival
and was said be getting a theatrical release on Valentine's Day
2008, but it went straight to DVD. In 2008, Murphy made a brief reappearance as the Scarecrow in The Dark Knight
, the sequel to Batman Begins
. He also starred in The Edge of Love
, a love quadrangle/biopic with Keira Knightley
, Sienna Miller
and Matthew Rhys
as William Killick
. Murphy also made a debut appearance in another medium—on a postage stamp: in July 2008, the Irish Post Office, An Post
, recognised his contribution to the Irish film industry by issuing a stamp featuring a still from The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
In 2009, Cillian starred in The Water
, directed by rock musician Kevin Drew
of Broken Social Scene
and starring Murphy, rock musician Feist and actor David Fox
, was released online in April. The 15-minute Canadian short film is nearly silent until the Feist song of the same title plays close to the end. Murphy also starred in Perrier's Bounty
, a crime dramedy from the makers of Intermission, in which he portrayed a petty criminal on the run from a gangster played by Brendan Gleeson
. Perrier's Bounty premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival
in September 2009, and had a limited release in 2010. Peacock, a psychological thriller in which Murphy stars as a man with a split personality who fools people into believing he is also his own wife; Ellen Page
, Susan Sarandon
and Bill Pullman
co-star. Peacock was supposed to come out in 2009, but after a delay, went straight to DVD in early 2010. The several years' delayed biopic Hippie Hippie Shake, shot in 2007, stars Murphy (again alongside Sienna Miller) as Richard Neville
, editor of the psychedelic radical underground magazine Oz
, which, in 1971, was at the center of what was then the longest obscenity trial in British history. In a sign of trouble, the director and screenwriter walked off the production in mid-2009. In contrast to his delayed projects, Murphy was a part of the acclaimed ensemble cast of Christopher Nolan
's blockbuster Inception
, with Leonardo DiCaprio
, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
; the film was released in July 2010. He also made an uncredited cameo appearance in Tron: Legacy, released in December 2010, as programmer Edward Dillinger Jr, son of original Tron
antagonist Ed Dillinger (David Warner
), and could participate in more of Trons future projects. Murphy will play the Scarecrow for the third and final time in The Dark Knight Rises
.
Murphy has a few new screen roles scheduled for production. He will star in the adaptation of the Irish metafictional novel At Swim-Two-Birds
by Flann O'Brien
, alongside Colin Farrell
, Gabriel Byrne
and Brendan Gleeson (who will also direct). He was also signed to star in Dali & I: The Surreal Story, though it was put on hold when a possible actor's strike loomed. Salvador Dali
will be portrayed by Al Pacino
, an actor with whom Murphy has said he hoped to work, having credited a teenage viewing of Pacino in 1973's Scarecrow
(his favorite film) as awakening him to the potential power of film acting.
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. In 2005, he commented that he would like to play the jazz musician Chet Baker
. 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
. He also admires Jeff Bridges
, Sean Penn
, Edward Norton
and Joaquin Phoenix
. Not wishing to be typecast or repeat himself, Murphy says he does not want to play any more villains. Although he does not want to move to Los Angeles because of the cultural differences and distance from his family, Murphy has said he feels it is both wise and artistically worthwhile for him to make both big Hollywood pictures and smaller independent films.
, an artist whom he met in 1996 at one of his rock band's shows. The couple lives in northwest London with their two sons, Malachy (born in 2005) and Carrick (born in 2007). Murphy is known for being reluctant to speak about his personal life. He frequently gives interviews about his work but did not appear on any live TV chat shows, where actors customarily share information about their private lives, until 2010, when he was a guest on The Late Late Show on Ireland's RTÉ to promote Perrier's Bounty
yet still remained politely reserved. He does not have a stylist or a personal publicist, travels without an entourage, and often attends premieres alone. Shy and private, Murphy professes a lack of interest in the celebrity scene, finding the red carpet experience "a challenge... and not one I want to overcome". He intentionally practices a lifestyle that will not interest the tabloids: "I haven't created any controversy, I don't sleep around, I don't go and fall down drunk". Murphy is friends with fellow Irish actors Colin Farrell
and Liam Neeson
, looking up to the latter like a "surrogate movie dad." But primarily, Murphy's close friendships 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". He no longer plays in a rock band, but regularly plays music with friends and on his own, and still writes songs. Unlike many other famous actors who are also musicians, he does not plan to start another band: "Even if I was good, the very notion of being an actor with a rock band on the side would mean I'd never be taken seriously". Murphy is also a dedicated runner
.
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. Murphy participated in the 2007 Rock the Vote
Ireland campaign targeting young voters for the general election. He has also campaigned for the rights of the homeless with the organization Focus Ireland
.
A native of Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
, 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 British 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
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural...
film 28 Days Later
28 Days Later
28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
. Murphy's best-known roles are as villains in two 2005 blockbusters: Scarecrow
Scarecrow (comics)
The Scarecrow is a fictional character, a supervillain, that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 and was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane...
in the superhero film
Superhero film
A superhero film, superhero movie, or superhero motion picture is: action, fantasy and science fiction film; that is focused on the actions of one or more superheroes, individuals who usually possess superhuman abilities relative to a normal person and are dedicated to protecting the public...
Batman Begins
Batman Begins
Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,...
(he reprised the role of Scarecrow in a small cameo
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
in The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight (film)
The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
), and Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye
Red Eye (film)
Red Eye is a 2005 thriller film directed by Wes Craven and starring Rachel McAdams as a hotel manager ensnared in an assassination plot by a terrorist while aboard a red-eye flight to Miami. The film score was composed and conducted by Marco Beltrami.-Plot:Lisa Reisert fears flying...
. Next came two contrasting and acclaimed starring roles: his Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
-nominated performance as a glam
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
orphan teen in 2005's Breakfast on Pluto
Breakfast on Pluto (film)
Breakfast on Pluto is a 2005 comedy-drama film directed by Neil Jordan and based on the novel of the same name by Patrick McCabe, as adapted by Jordan and McCabe...
and a turn as a 1920s Irish revolutionary in the 2006 Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
winner, The Wind That Shakes the Barley
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (film)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Irish war drama film directed by Ken Loach, set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War...
. In 2010, Murphy played Robert Fischer, corporate heir and the target of Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
's dreamscape heist in the acclaimed blockbuster Inception
Inception
Inception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995 is a compilation of unreleased tracks by the band Download.-Track listing:# "Primitive Tekno Jam" – 3:23# "Bee Sting Sickness" – 8:04# "Weed Acid Techno" – 8:19...
.
A resident of London since 2001, Murphy often works in or near the city and has expressed no desire to move to Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
. Uncomfortable on the celebrity circuit, he customarily gives interviews about his work, but does not publicly discuss details of his private life and did not appear on a television talk show until 2010.
Early life and music
Born in Douglas and raised in Ballintemple, two suburbs of CorkCork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
, Cillian Murphy is the eldest of four children. His father, Brendan, works for the Irish Department of Education
Department of Education and Science (Ireland)
The Department of Education and Skills is a department of the Government of Ireland. It is led by the Minister for Education and Skills who is assisted by two Ministers of State.-Departmental team:...
, 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.
Murphy was raised Roman Catholic and attended the Catholic school Presentation Brothers College
Presentation Brothers College, Cork
Presentation Brothers College is a Catholic, boys-only, fee-paying college based in Cork, Ireland.- History :The college was founded by the Presentation Brothers in 1878, in the South Mall. Soon afterwards it moved to the Grand Parade and, in 1887, to the Western Road...
, where he did well academically but got into trouble often, sometimes getting suspended, until he decided in his fourth year that misbehaving was not worth the hassle. Not keen on sport, a major part of life at PBC, Murphy found that creative pursuits were not fully nurtured at the school. Still, it was there that he got his first taste of performing, when he participated in a drama module presented by Pat Kiernan, the director of the Corcadorca Theatre Company
Corcadorca Theatre Company
The Corcadorca Theatre Company was founded in Cork in 1991 and is one of Ireland's leading independent theatre companies.The theatre company strives to be integral part of the cultural life of the city, and has sought to develop new writing through its biennial Corcadorca Playwright Award, and by...
. Murphy later described the experience as a "huge high" and a "fully alive" feeling that he set out to chase. His English teacher, the poet and novelist William Wall
William Wall
William "Bill" Wall is an Irish novelist, poet and short story writer. He was born in Cork City in 1955, but grew up in the coastal village of Whitegate. He received his secondary education at the Christian Brothers School in Midleton. He progressed to University College Cork where he graduated in...
, encouraged him to pursue acting, but at this stage, to Murphy, performing meant dreams of becoming a rock star.
In his late teens and early twenties, Murphy worked toward a career as a rock musician, playing guitar in several bands alongside his brother Páidi. The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
-obsessed pair named their most successful band The Sons of Mr. Greengenes, after a 1969 song
Hot Rats
Hot Rats is the second solo album by Frank Zappa. It was released in October 1969. Five of the six songs are instrumental . It was Zappa's first recording project after the dissolution of the original Mothers of Invention...
by another idol, Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
. Murphy sang and played guitar in the band, which he has said "specialised in wacky lyrics and endless guitar solos." In 1996, The Sons of Mr. Greengenes were offered a five-album record deal by Acid Jazz Records
Acid Jazz Records
Acid Jazz is a record label based in east London. It takes its name from acid jazz, a genre of jazz music. Alternative version states that the genre itself was named after the record label...
, but they did not sign the contract. Because Murphy's brother was still in secondary school, their parents disapproved. Additionally, the contract offered little money and would have ceded the rights to Murphy's compositions to the record label.
Also in 1996, Murphy began studying law at University College Cork (UCC), but he failed his first year exams because, as he put it, he had "no ambitions to do it." Not only was he busy with his band, but he has admitted that he knew within days after starting at UCC that law was the wrong fit for him. Furthermore, after seeing Corcadorca's stage production of A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess. The novel contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian....
, directed by Kiernan, acting had begun to pique his interest. His first major role was in the UCC Drama Society's amateur production of Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme is a 1985 play by Frank McGuinness.-Plot synopsis:The play centres on the experiences of eight Unionist Irishmen who volunteer to serve in the 36th Division at the beginning of the First World War...
, but, according to Murphy, his primary motivation then was to party and meet women, not to begin an acting career. Nonetheless, he began to transition away from working as a rock musician, about which he later remarked, "I think there's such a thing as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform."
Early work
Murphy hounded Pat Kiernan until he got an audition at Corcadorca, and in September 1996, he made his professional acting debut on the stage, originating the part of a volatile Cork teenager in Enda WalshEnda Walsh
Enda Walsh is an Irish playwright born in Dublin and currently living in London. Walsh attended the same secondary school where both Roddy Doyle and Paul Mercier taught. Having written for the Dublin Youth Theatre, he moved to Cork where he wrote Fishy Tales for the Graffiti Theatre Company,...
's Disco Pigs
Disco Pigs
Disco Pigs is a 2001 Irish film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Enda Walsh, who adapted it from his 1996 play of the same name. Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy star as Cork teenagers who have a lifelong, but unhealthy, friendship that is imploding as they approach adulthood.-Plot:The...
. 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, Disco Pigs ended up touring throughout Europe, Canada and Australia for two years, and Murphy left university and his band. 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.
From 1997 to 2003, Murphy starred in independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
s, such as John Carney
John Carney (director)
John Carney is an Irish film and TV writer/director who specialises in low-budget indie films. He is best known for his award-winning 2007 movie Once. He is also a co-creator of the Irish TV drama series Bachelors Walk.-Life and career:...
's On the Edge, in short films, including the Irish/English language short Filleann an Feall, and in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television miniseries adaptation of The Way We Live Now
The Way We Live Now (2001 TV serial)
The Way We Live Now is a 2001 four-part television adaptation of the novel by Anthony Trollope. The serial was first broadcast on the BBC and was directed by David Yates, written by Andrew Davies and produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark...
. In addition to Disco Pigs, he starred in many other plays, including Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
, Neil LaBute
Neil LaBute
Neil N. LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver. LaBute is of French Canadian, English and Irish ancestry, and was raised in Spokane,...
's The Shape of Things
The Shape of Things
The Shape of Things is a 2001 play by American author and film director Neil LaBute and a 2003 American romantic comedy-drama film. It premièred at the Almeida Theatre, London in 2001 with Paul Rudd as Adam, Rachel Weisz as Evelyn, Gretchen Mol as Jenny, and Fred Weller as Phillip. The play was...
, and Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
; Murphy considers this stage work to have been his "training ground." Murphy also reprised his Disco Pigs role for the 2001 indie film version
Disco Pigs
Disco Pigs is a 2001 Irish film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Enda Walsh, who adapted it from his 1996 play of the same name. Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy star as Cork teenagers who have a lifelong, but unhealthy, friendship that is imploding as they approach adulthood.-Plot:The...
by Kirsten Sheridan
Kirsten Sheridan
Kirsten Sheridan is an Irish film director and screenwriter. The director of August Rush and Disco Pigs , Sheridan was nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing the semi-autobiographical film In America with her father, director Jim Sheridan, and her sister, Naomi Sheridan.-Biography:Born in...
, performing his original song "So New" over the closing credits and singing The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
' "You Really Got Me
You Really Got Me
"You Really Got Me" is a rock song written by Ray Davies and performed by his band, The Kinks. It was released on 4th August 1964 as the group's third single, and reached Number 1 on the UK singles chart the next month, remaining for two weeks...
" in a pub karaoke scene. 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
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
when casting the lead for 28 Days Later
28 Days Later
28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
. Released in the UK in late 2002, by the following July 28 Days Later had become a sleeper hit in America 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 8th Empire Awards
8th Empire Awards
The 8th Empire Awards , honoring the best in film in 2002, were held on February 5, 2003 at The Dorchester Hotel and hosted by Richard E. Grant. Below is a complete list of nominees and winners...
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
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
in Intermission
Intermission (film)
Intermission is a 2003 Irish comedy crime film directed by John Crowley which tells a story of a young couple and people surrounding them. The film is set in Dublin, Ireland and is filmed in a TV drama style with several storylines crossing over one another during the course of the film.Mark O'Rowe...
, which became the highest-grossing Irish independent film in Irish box office history (until The Wind That Shakes the Barley
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (film)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Irish war drama film directed by Ken Loach, set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War...
broke the record in 2006). Murphy also appeared in supporting roles in his first Hollywood films, Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain (film)
Cold Mountain is a 2003 war drama film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier...
and Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring (film)
Girl with a Pearl Earring is a 2003 drama film directed by Peter Webber. The screenplay was adapted by screenwriter Olivia Hetreed based on the novel by Tracy Chevalier. The film stars Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, and Cillian Murphy. The film is named after a painting of the same...
. For the latter film, he learned to chop meat in an abattoir to prepare for his role as a butcher, even though he is a vegetarian. In 2004, he toured Ireland in the titular role of The Playboy of the Western World
The Playboy of the Western World
The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on January 26, 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo during the early 1900s...
, a Druid Theatre Company
Druid Theatre Company
The Druid Theatre Company, founded in Galway in 1975, was the first Irish professional theatre company to be established outside Dublin. The theatre company was founded by Garry Hynes, Marie Mullen and Mick Lally after the three had met and put on productions together while members of the...
production under the direction of Garry Hynes
Garry Hynes
Garry Hynes is an Irish theatre director. She holds the distinction of being the first female to win the prestigious Tony Award for direction of a play.Hynes was born in Ballaghadereen, Roscommon County and educated at St...
, who had previously directed Murphy in Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
's Juno and the Paycock
Juno and the Paycock
Juno and the Paycock is a play by Sean O'Casey, and one of the most highly regarded and oft-performed plays in Ireland. It was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924...
and John Murphy's The Country Boy
The Country Boy
The Country Boy: A Play in Three Acts is a play by Irish playwright, John Murphy . Himself a country boy and native of Charlestown, County Mayo) who emigrated to the United States of America, The Country Boy reflects on the social problems of emigration and rural life in the late 1950s.The Country...
, also for Druid.
Critical success
2005 was the year that Cillian Murphy won wider recognition, first for two high-profile villain roles: Dr. Jonathan Crane in Batman BeginsBatman Begins
Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,...
, and Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye
Red Eye (film)
Red Eye is a 2005 thriller film directed by Wes Craven and starring Rachel McAdams as a hotel manager ensnared in an assassination plot by a terrorist while aboard a red-eye flight to Miami. The film score was composed and conducted by Marco Beltrami.-Plot:Lisa Reisert fears flying...
. Originally asked to audition for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
in Batman Begins, Murphy never saw himself as having the right physique for the superhero, but leapt at the chance to connect with director Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Jonathan James Nolan is a British-American film director, screenwriter and producer.He received serious notice after his second feature Memento , which he wrote and directed based on a story idea by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. Jonathan went to co-write later scripts with him,...
. Though the lead went to Christian Bale
Christian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....
, Nolan was so impressed with Murphy that he gave him the supporting role of Dr. Crane, whose alter ego is supervillain
Supervillain
A supervillain or supervillainess is a variant of the villain character type, commonly found in comic books, action movies and science fiction in various media.They are sometimes used as foils to superheroes and other fictional heroes...
Scarecrow
Scarecrow (comics)
The Scarecrow is a fictional character, a supervillain, that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 and was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane...
. Nolan told Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
, "He has the most extraordinary eyes, and I kept trying to invent excuses for him to take his glasses off in close-ups." In Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the...
's Red Eye, Murphy starred as an operative in an assassination plot who terrorizes Rachel McAdams
Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
on an overnight flight. New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
film critic Manohla Dargis
Manohla Dargis
Manohla Dargis is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with A.O. Scott. She was formerly a chief film critic for the Los Angeles Times, the film editor at the LA Weekly, and a film critic at The Village Voice. She has written for a variety of publications, including Film Comment and...
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
MTV Movie Awards 2006
The 2006 MTV Movie Awards were hosted by Jessica Alba and featured performances by Christina Aguilera, AFI and Gnarls Barkley. In addition to the below awards, MTV gave lifetime achievement awards to Jim Carrey and Spike Lee .MTV held its 15th annual movie awards show on Saturday, June 3, at the...
for Batman Begins. Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
ranked him among its 2005 "Summer MVPs
Most Valuable Player
In sports, a Most Valuable Player award is an honor typically bestowed upon the best performing player or players on a specific team, in an entire league, or for a particular contest or series of contests...
", a cover story list of ten entertainers with outstanding breakthrough performances. The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
s David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
wrote, "Cillian Murphy, who has angelic looks that can turn sinister, is one of the most elegantly seductive monsters in recent movies."
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
Irish orphan in search of her mother, in Neil Jordan
Neil Jordan
Neil Patrick Jordan is an Irish filmmaker and novelist. He won an Academy Award for The Crying Game.- Early life :...
's dramedy Breakfast on Pluto
Breakfast on Pluto (film)
Breakfast on Pluto is a 2005 comedy-drama film directed by Neil Jordan and based on the novel of the same name by Patrick McCabe, as adapted by Jordan and McCabe...
, 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
The Crying Game
The Crying Game is a 1992 psychological thriller drama film written and directed by Neil Jordan. The film explores themes of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality against the backdrop of the Irish Troubles...
director was hesitant to revisit transgender and I.R.A.
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
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.
Against Breakfast on Pluto’s kaleidoscopic backdrop of 1970s glitter rock fashion, magic shows, red light districts and I.R.A. violence, Murphy transforms from androgynous teen to high drag
Drag (clothing)
Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...
blond bombshell. The San Francisco Chronicles Ruthe Stein said of his performance, "Murphy projects enormous energy onscreen, as he's already shown in 28 Days Later... and Red Eye. He's supremely well cast as the androgynous Kitten ... [and] smoothly makes the transition from broad comedy to drama. He delivers Kitten's favorite line, 'Oh serious, serious, serious!' with the full implications of its dual meaning." While even lukewarm reviews of Breakfast on Pluto still tended to praise Murphy's performance highly, a few critics dissented: The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, which panned the film, found him "unconvincing" and overly cute.
Murphy was nominated for a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Breakfast on Pluto and won the Irish Film and Television Academy Best Actor Award. Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
cited his performance as Kitten in their "The 24 Finest Performances of 2005" feature. All three of his 2005 performances were honored by Entertainment Weekly, when they included him in their "Great Performances of 2005" year-end issue. A late 2005 Back Stage feature labeled Murphy "a chameleonic performer, a character actor trapped in a leading man's bone structure."
In 2006 (2007 in North America), he starred in Ken Loach
Ken Loach
Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...
's film about the Irish War of Independence
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...
and Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....
, The Wind That Shakes the Barley
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (film)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Irish war drama film directed by Ken Loach, set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War...
, which won the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival
2006 Cannes Film Festival
The 2006 Cannes Film Festival ran from May 17, 2006 to May 28, 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over the jury....
and became the most successful Irish independent film at the Irish box office. Loach, a social realist
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
who shoots films in sequence, is strict about casting actors from the areas where his films are set, rarely casting well-known faces. Because the film was set in Cork, Murphy was given a chance at the role of Damien O'Donovan, a young doctor turned revolutionary, but he had to audition six times before winning the part. Murphy's family goes back in Cork for many generations; during the time period in which The Wind That Shakes the Barley is set, his grandfather was shot at by British soldiers for playing Irish music.
Critic Denby described Murphy's approach to the part of Damien: "Murphy is normally very quiet in movies; he has attained his mystique as an actor by staring at people with baby-blue eyes. In this film, too, he has, at times, a deep stillness, but he has idiosyncratic moments as well, such as when Damien has to execute a teen-ager who has ratted on the I.R.A. Murphy, writhing, shoots the boy and stumbles away, nausea struggling against duty." Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
wrote, "Murphy is especially good at playing the zealotry as well as the soul-searching and the regret, at showing us a man who is eaten up alive because he's forced to act in ways that are contrary to his background and his training." Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday is a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published in Edinburgh by The Scotsman Publications Ltd and consequently assuming the role of Sunday sister to its daily stablemate The Scotsman...
commented, "Cillian Murphy ... exudes a doe-eyed sensitivity that is central to our emotional involvement in the character's development. He is not 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 is unyielding and entirely believable." GQ UK
GQ (magazine)
GQ is a monthly men's magazine focusing on fashion, style, and culture for men, through articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, and books...
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 CampbellNeve Campbell
Neve Adrianne Campbell is a Canadian actress. After beginning her career on stage, and on numerous commercials, she starred on the Canadian television series Catwalk. She then rose to international fame on the Golden Globe-winning 1990s television series Party of Five, playing the role of teenager...
, 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
Sunshine (2007 film)
Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass...
, which re-teamed him with director Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
. Murphy appeared opposite Lucy Liu
Lucy Liu
Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal , and has also appeared in several Hollywood films including Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda.-Early...
in Paul Soter
Paul Soter
Paul Soter is an American actor, writer, and director, and one of the members of the Broken Lizard comedy group. As a child, he lived in Sacramento, Anchorage, Phoenix, and Denver. He graduated from Colgate University and was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity...
's romantic comedy Watching the Detectives; the indie film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
and was said be getting a theatrical release on Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day
Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496...
2008, but it went straight to DVD. In 2008, Murphy made a brief reappearance as the Scarecrow in The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight (film)
The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
, the sequel to Batman Begins
Batman Begins
Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,...
. He also starred in The Edge of Love
The Edge of Love
The Edge of Love is a 2008 John Maybury film starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys from a script by Sharman Macdonald, Knightley's mother...
, a love quadrangle/biopic with Keira Knightley
Keira Knightley
Keira Christina Knightley born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham...
, Sienna Miller
Sienna Miller
Sienna Rose Diana Miller is a British-American actress, model, and fashion designer, best known for her roles in Layer Cake, Alfie, Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2007, the London Film Criticsnamed her British Actress of the Year for Interview...
and Matthew Rhys
Matthew Rhys
Matthew Rhys Evans , known professionally as Matthew Rhys, is a Welsh actor, best known as Kevin Walker on the U.S. ABC family drama Brothers & Sisters, and as Dylan Thomas in The Edge of Love.-Early life:...
as William Killick
William Killick
William Killick was an English cricketer. He was a right-handed batsman who played for Surrey. He was born in Reigate and died in Horley....
. Murphy also made a debut appearance in another medium—on a postage stamp: in July 2008, the Irish Post Office, An Post
An Post
An Post is the State-owned provider of postal services in the Republic of Ireland. An Post provides a universal postal service to all parts of the country as a member of the Universal Postal Union...
, recognised his contribution to the Irish film industry by issuing a stamp featuring a still from The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
In 2009, Cillian starred in The Water
The Water (short film)
The Water is a short film directed by Kevin Drew starring Cillian Murphy, David Fox and Drew's Broken Social Scene bandmate, Leslie Feist.-Synopsis:...
, directed by rock musician Kevin Drew
Kevin Drew
Kevin Drew is a Canadian musician and songwriter who, together with Brendan Canning, founded the expansive Toronto baroque-pop collective Broken Social Scene...
of Broken Social Scene
Broken Social Scene
Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed in 1999 by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning. Most of its members currently play in various other groups and solo projects, mainly based around the city of Toronto...
and starring Murphy, rock musician Feist and actor David Fox
David Fox (actor)
David Fox is a Canadian actor.Fox was born in Swastika, Ontario. He is best known for his role as schoolteacher Clive Pettibone in Road to Avonlea, and for a variety of roles on television...
, was released online in April. The 15-minute Canadian short film is nearly silent until the Feist song of the same title plays close to the end. Murphy also starred in Perrier's Bounty
Perrier's Bounty
Perrier's Bounty is an Irish crime thriller comedy set in modern-day Dublin. Describing it as an "urban western", sophomore director Ian Fitzgibbon directs the film, which stars Brendan Gleeson, who plays the villainous title character, as well as Cillian Murphy and Jim Broadbent as son and...
, a crime dramedy from the makers of Intermission, in which he portrayed a petty criminal on the run from a gangster played by Brendan Gleeson
Brendan Gleeson
Brendan Gleeson is an Irish actor. His best-known films include Braveheart, Gangs of New York, In Bruges, 28 Days Later, the Harry Potter films, The Guard and the role of Michael Collins in The Treaty...
. Perrier's Bounty premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
in September 2009, and had a limited release in 2010. Peacock, a psychological thriller in which Murphy stars as a man with a split personality who fools people into believing he is also his own wife; Ellen Page
Ellen Page
Ellen Philpotts-Page , known professionally as Ellen Page, is a Canadian actress. Page received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her role as the title character in the film Juno...
, Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...
and Bill Pullman
Bill Pullman
William James "Bill" Pullman is an American film, television, and stage actor. Pullman made his film debut in the supporting role of Earl Mott in the 1986 film Ruthless People. He has since gone on to star in other films, including Spaceballs, Independence Day, Lost Highway, Casper and Scary Movie 4...
co-star. Peacock was supposed to come out in 2009, but after a delay, went straight to DVD in early 2010. The several years' delayed biopic Hippie Hippie Shake, shot in 2007, stars Murphy (again alongside Sienna Miller) as Richard Neville
Richard Neville (writer)
Richard Neville is an Australian author and self-described "futurist", who came to fame as a co-editor of the counterculture magazine Oz in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s...
, editor of the psychedelic radical underground magazine Oz
Oz (magazine)
Oz was first published as a satirical humour magazine between 1963 and 1969 in Sydney, Australia and, in its second and better known incarnation, became a "psychedelic hippy" magazine from 1967 to 1973 in London...
, which, in 1971, was at the center of what was then the longest obscenity trial in British history. In a sign of trouble, the director and screenwriter walked off the production in mid-2009. In contrast to his delayed projects, Murphy was a part of the acclaimed ensemble cast of Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Jonathan James Nolan is a British-American film director, screenwriter and producer.He received serious notice after his second feature Memento , which he wrote and directed based on a story idea by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. Jonathan went to co-write later scripts with him,...
's blockbuster Inception
Inception
Inception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995 is a compilation of unreleased tracks by the band Download.-Track listing:# "Primitive Tekno Jam" – 3:23# "Bee Sting Sickness" – 8:04# "Weed Acid Techno" – 8:19...
, with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt is an American actor whose career as both a child and adult has included television series and theatrical films....
; the film was released in July 2010. He also made an uncredited cameo appearance in Tron: Legacy, released in December 2010, as programmer Edward Dillinger Jr, son of original Tron
Tron
-Film:*Tron , a franchise that began in 1982 with the Walt Disney Pictures film Tron** Tron , a 1982 science fiction film by Disney, starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor and David Warner...
antagonist Ed Dillinger (David Warner
David Warner (actor)
David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...
), and could participate in more of Trons future projects. Murphy will play the Scarecrow for the third and final time in The Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight Rises is an upcoming epic superhero film. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film will be the third and final installment in Nolan's Batman film series, and is a sequel to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight...
.
Murphy has a few new screen roles scheduled for production. He will star in the adaptation of the Irish metafictional novel At Swim-Two-Birds
At Swim-Two-Birds
At Swim-Two-Birds is a 1939 novel by Irish author Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It is widely considered to be O'Brien's masterpiece, and one of the most sophisticated examples of metafiction....
by Flann O'Brien
Flann O'Brien
Brian O'Nolan was an Irish novelist, playwright and satirist regarded as a key figure in postmodern literature. Best known for novels such as At Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman and An Béal Bocht and many satirical columns in The Irish Times Brian O'Nolan (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966) was...
, alongside Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
, Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
and Brendan Gleeson (who will also direct). He was also signed to star in Dali & I: The Surreal Story, though it was put on hold when a possible actor's strike loomed. Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
will be portrayed by Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
, an actor with whom Murphy has said he hoped to work, having credited a teenage viewing of Pacino in 1973's Scarecrow
Scarecrow (1973 film)
Scarecrow is a 1973 road movie starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino.-Synopsis:The story revolves around the odd relationship between two vagabonds: Max Milian , a short-tempered ex-convict, and Francis Lionel "Lion" Delbuchi , a childlike ex-sailor...
(his favorite film) as awakening him to the potential power of film acting.
As for future roles, Murphy has long wanted to portray a cowboy in a Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
, because as a child, he enjoyed watching John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
movies with his father. In 2005, he commented that he would like to play the jazz musician Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
. Murphy would like to work with director Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
someday; among the actors he hopes to work with are Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
, Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
and Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
. He also admires Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges
Jeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges is an American actor and musician. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart....
, Sean Penn
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
, Edward Norton
Edward Norton
Edward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
and Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
. Not wishing to be typecast or repeat himself, Murphy says he does not want to play any more villains. Although he does not want to move to Los Angeles because of the cultural differences and distance from his family, Murphy has said he feels it is both wise and artistically worthwhile for him to make both big Hollywood pictures and smaller independent films.
Personal life
In mid-2004, Murphy married his long-time live-in girlfriend, Yvonne McGuinnessYvonne McGuinness
Yvonne McGuinness is a London-based visual artist who works in a variety of contexts, including video installation and print...
, an artist whom he met in 1996 at one of his rock band's shows. The couple lives in northwest London with their two sons, Malachy (born in 2005) and Carrick (born in 2007). Murphy is known for being reluctant to speak about his personal life. He frequently gives interviews about his work but did not appear on any live TV chat shows, where actors customarily share information about their private lives, until 2010, when he was a guest on The Late Late Show on Ireland's RTÉ to promote Perrier's Bounty
Perrier's Bounty
Perrier's Bounty is an Irish crime thriller comedy set in modern-day Dublin. Describing it as an "urban western", sophomore director Ian Fitzgibbon directs the film, which stars Brendan Gleeson, who plays the villainous title character, as well as Cillian Murphy and Jim Broadbent as son and...
yet still remained politely reserved. He does not have a stylist or a personal publicist, travels without an entourage, and often attends premieres alone. Shy and private, Murphy professes a lack of interest in the celebrity scene, finding the red carpet experience "a challenge... and not one I want to overcome". He intentionally practices a lifestyle that will not interest the tabloids: "I haven't created any controversy, I don't sleep around, I don't go and fall down drunk". Murphy is friends with fellow Irish actors Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
and Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
, looking up to the latter like a "surrogate movie dad." But primarily, Murphy's close friendships 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". He no longer plays in a rock band, but regularly plays music with friends and on his own, and still writes songs. Unlike many other famous actors who are also musicians, he does not plan to start another band: "Even if I was good, the very notion of being an actor with a rock band on the side would mean I'd never be taken seriously". Murphy is also a dedicated runner
Running
Running is a means of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. It is simply defined in athletics terms as a gait in which at regular points during the running cycle both feet are off the ground...
.
Murphy ultimately became an atheist
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
after researching his role as a nuclear physicist/astronaut in the science fiction film Sunshine
Sunshine (2007 film)
Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass...
. He is a longtime vegetarian, not due to any moral objection to the killing of animals, but because of qualms about unhealthy agribusiness
Agribusiness
In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term for the various businesses involved in food production, including farming and contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales....
practices. Murphy participated in the 2007 Rock the Vote
Rock the Vote
Rock the Vote is a non-profit organization in the United States of America whose mission is to engage and build the political power of young people....
Ireland campaign targeting young voters for the general election. He has also campaigned for the rights of the homeless with the organization Focus Ireland
Focus Ireland
Focus Ireland is a nonprofit organization based in Dublin, Republic of Ireland that provides services for homeless people.Focus Ireland was founded by Sister Stanislaus Kennedy and Rachel Collier in 1985. Its stated mission is "to advance the right of people-out-of-home to live in a place they call...
.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | The Tale of Sweety Barrett | Pat the Barman | |
| 1999 | Sunburn | Davin McDerby | |
| The Trench The Trench (film) The Trench is a 1999 film directed by William Boyd that portrays a group of young British soldiers on the eve of the Battle of the Somme in the last 48 hours.-Synopsis:... |
Rag Rockwood | ||
| 2001 | On the Edge | Jonathan Breech | |
| How Harry Became a Tree | Gus | Bitter Harvest in U.S. | |
| Disco Pigs Disco Pigs Disco Pigs is a 2001 Irish film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Enda Walsh, who adapted it from his 1996 play of the same name. Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy star as Cork teenagers who have a lifelong, but unhealthy, friendship that is imploding as they approach adulthood.-Plot:The... |
Darren/"Pig" | ||
| 2002 | 28 Days Later 28 Days Later 28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston... |
Jim | |
| 2003 | Zonad Zonad Zonad is a film by John Carney and Kieran Carney that premiered in July 2009 at the Galway Film Fleadh with the directors in attendance.The film went to general release in Ireland March 19, 2010.- Plot :... |
Guy Hendrickson | Unreleased |
| Intermission Intermission (film) Intermission is a 2003 Irish comedy crime film directed by John Crowley which tells a story of a young couple and people surrounding them. The film is set in Dublin, Ireland and is filmed in a TV drama style with several storylines crossing over one another during the course of the film.Mark O'Rowe... |
John | ||
| Girl with a Pearl Earring Girl with a Pearl Earring (film) Girl with a Pearl Earring is a 2003 drama film directed by Peter Webber. The screenplay was adapted by screenwriter Olivia Hetreed based on the novel by Tracy Chevalier. The film stars Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, and Cillian Murphy. The film is named after a painting of the same... |
Pieter | ||
| Cold Mountain Cold Mountain (film) Cold Mountain is a 2003 war drama film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier... |
Bardolph | ||
| 2005 | Batman Begins Batman Begins Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,... |
Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow Scarecrow (comics) The Scarecrow is a fictional character, a supervillain, that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 and was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane... |
|
| Red Eye Red Eye (film) Red Eye is a 2005 thriller film directed by Wes Craven and starring Rachel McAdams as a hotel manager ensnared in an assassination plot by a terrorist while aboard a red-eye flight to Miami. The film score was composed and conducted by Marco Beltrami.-Plot:Lisa Reisert fears flying... |
Jackson Rippner | ||
| Breakfast on Pluto Breakfast on Pluto (film) Breakfast on Pluto is a 2005 comedy-drama film directed by Neil Jordan and based on the novel of the same name by Patrick McCabe, as adapted by Jordan and McCabe... |
Patrick "Kitten" Braden | ||
| 2006 | The Wind That Shakes the Barley The Wind That Shakes the Barley (film) The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Irish war drama film directed by Ken Loach, set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War... |
Damien O'Donovan | |
| 2007 | Sunshine Sunshine (2007 film) Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass... |
Robert Capa | |
| Watching the Detectives | Neil | Straight to DVD | |
| 2008 | The Dark Knight The Dark Knight (film) The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins... |
Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow Scarecrow (comics) The Scarecrow is a fictional character, a supervillain, that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 and was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane... |
Cameo Appearance |
| The Edge of Love The Edge of Love The Edge of Love is a 2008 John Maybury film starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys from a script by Sharman Macdonald, Knightley's mother... |
William Killick | ||
| Waveriders Waveriders Waveriders is a 2009 documentary film. The film was produced by Margo Harkin and directed by Joel Conroy.- Plot :Waveriders focuses on the Irish roots of surfing... |
Narrator | Documentary | |
| 2009 | Perrier's Bounty Perrier's Bounty Perrier's Bounty is an Irish crime thriller comedy set in modern-day Dublin. Describing it as an "urban western", sophomore director Ian Fitzgibbon directs the film, which stars Brendan Gleeson, who plays the villainous title character, as well as Cillian Murphy and Jim Broadbent as son and... |
Michael McCrea | |
| 2010 | Peacock Peacock (2009 film) Peacock is a 2010 American direct-to-video psychological thriller directed by Michael Lander, written by Lander and Ryan Roy, and starring Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page and Susan Sarandon... |
John/Emma Skillpa | Straight to DVD |
| Hippie Hippie Shake | Richard Neville Richard Neville (writer) Richard Neville is an Australian author and self-described "futurist", who came to fame as a co-editor of the counterculture magazine Oz in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s... |
||
| Inception Inception Inception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995 is a compilation of unreleased tracks by the band Download.-Track listing:# "Primitive Tekno Jam" – 3:23# "Bee Sting Sickness" – 8:04# "Weed Acid Techno" – 8:19... |
Robert Fischer | ||
| Tron: Legacy | Edward Dillinger, Jr. | Uncredited Cameo | |
| 2011 | Retreat Retreat (film) Retreat is an 2011 British independent psychological thriller film and the directional debut of former film editor Carl Tibbets. The film stars Cillian Murphy, Jamie Bell, and Thandie Newton as three people isolated from the rest of the world on a remote island, who are told they are survivors of a... |
Martin | |
| In Time In Time (film) In Time, previously titled Now and I'm.mortal, is a 2011 dystopian science fiction-thriller film starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Galecki, and Vincent Kartheiser... |
Timekeeper Raymond Leon | ||
| 2012 | Red Lights | Tom Buckley | |
| The Dark Knight Rises The Dark Knight Rises The Dark Knight Rises is an upcoming epic superhero film. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film will be the third and final installment in Nolan's Batman film series, and is a sequel to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight... |
Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow Scarecrow (comics) The Scarecrow is a fictional character, a supervillain, that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 and was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane... |
filming | |
| Wayfaring Strangers | Young John Lester | ||
| 2014 | Broken | (Unknown) | filming |
Short films
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Quando | Pat | |
| 1999 | Eviction | Brendan McBride | |
| At Death's Door | The Grim Reaper, Jr. | ||
| 2000 | Filleann an Feall (also known as The Treachery Returns) | Ger | |
| A Man of Few Words | Best Man | ||
| 2001 | Watchmen | Phil | co-wrote script with director Paloma Baeza Paloma Baeza -Biography:Baeza lived in Mexico during her childhood. Her Mexican father and her English mother were hippie musicians. In 1975, when Baeza was 5 months old, her parents married in London and they went to Mexico City. They divorced nine years afterwards.... |
| 2006 | The Silent City | unnamed | |
| 2009 | The Water The Water (short film) The Water is a short film directed by Kevin Drew starring Cillian Murphy, David Fox and Drew's Broken Social Scene bandmate, Leslie Feist.-Synopsis:... |
Son | directed by rock musician Kevin Drew Kevin Drew Kevin Drew is a Canadian musician and songwriter who, together with Brendan Canning, founded the expansive Toronto baroque-pop collective Broken Social Scene... |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | The Way We Live Now The Way We Live Now (2001 TV serial) The Way We Live Now is a 2001 four-part television adaptation of the novel by Anthony Trollope. The serial was first broadcast on the BBC and was directed by David Yates, written by Andrew Davies and produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark... |
Paul Montague | BBC BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff... miniseries Miniseries A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term... |
Stage
| Dates | Title | Role | Theater company |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 1996 – January 1999, including tours | Disco Pigs by Enda Walsh Enda Walsh Enda Walsh is an Irish playwright born in Dublin and currently living in London. Walsh attended the same secondary school where both Roddy Doyle and Paul Mercier taught. Having written for the Dublin Youth Theatre, he moved to Cork where he wrote Fishy Tales for the Graffiti Theatre Company,... |
Pig/Darren | Corcadorca Theatre Company Corcadorca Theatre Company The Corcadorca Theatre Company was founded in Cork in 1991 and is one of Ireland's leading independent theatre companies.The theatre company strives to be integral part of the cultural life of the city, and has sought to develop new writing through its biennial Corcadorca Playwright Award, and by... |
| 1998 | Much Ado About Nothing Much Ado About Nothing Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero.... by William Shakespeare William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"... |
Claudio | Bickerstaffe Theatre Company |
| May–June 1999 | The Country Boy The Country Boy The Country Boy: A Play in Three Acts is a play by Irish playwright, John Murphy . Himself a country boy and native of Charlestown, County Mayo) who emigrated to the United States of America, The Country Boy reflects on the social problems of emigration and rural life in the late 1950s.The Country... by John Murphy |
Curly | Druid Theatre Company Druid Theatre Company The Druid Theatre Company, founded in Galway in 1975, was the first Irish professional theatre company to be established outside Dublin. The theatre company was founded by Garry Hynes, Marie Mullen and Mick Lally after the three had met and put on productions together while members of the... |
| September 1999 | Juno and the Paycock Juno and the Paycock Juno and the Paycock is a play by Sean O'Casey, and one of the most highly regarded and oft-performed plays in Ireland. It was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924... by Sean O'Casey Seán O'Casey Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:... |
Johnny Boyle | Druid Theatre Company |
| February 2002 | The Shape of Things The Shape of Things The Shape of Things is a 2001 play by American author and film director Neil LaBute and a 2003 American romantic comedy-drama film. It premièred at the Almeida Theatre, London in 2001 with Paul Rudd as Adam, Rachel Weisz as Evelyn, Gretchen Mol as Jenny, and Fred Weller as Phillip. The play was... by Neil LaBute Neil LaBute Neil N. LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver. LaBute is of French Canadian, English and Irish ancestry, and was raised in Spokane,... |
Adam | Gate Theatre Gate Theatre The Gate Theatre, in Dublin, was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir, initially using the Abbey Theatre's Peacock studio theatre space to stage important works by European and American dramatists... |
| August 2003 | The Seagull The Seagull The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896... by Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics... |
Konstantine | Edinburgh International Festival Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera... |
| February–April 2004 tour | The Playboy of the Western World The Playboy of the Western World The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on January 26, 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo during the early 1900s... by John Millington Synge John Millington Synge Edmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre... |
Christy Mahon | Druid Theatre Company |
| December 2006 – February 2007 | Love Song by John Kolvenbach | Beane | New Ambassadors Theatre New Ambassadors Theatre The Ambassadors Theatre , is a West End theatre located in West Street, near Cambridge Circus on the Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster... |
| 21–22 May 2010 | From Galway to Broadway and back again. (a Druid 35th anniversary retrospective) | Christy Mahon | Druid Theatre Company |
| July 2011 | Misterman by Enda Walsh Enda Walsh Enda Walsh is an Irish playwright born in Dublin and currently living in London. Walsh attended the same secondary school where both Roddy Doyle and Paul Mercier taught. Having written for the Dublin Youth Theatre, he moved to Cork where he wrote Fishy Tales for the Graffiti Theatre Company,... |
Thomas Magill | Landmark Productions and Galway Arts Festival 2011 |
Golden Globe Awards
- Nominated: Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical, or ComedyGolden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyThe Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951...
(2006), Breakfast on PlutoBreakfast on Pluto (film)Breakfast on Pluto is a 2005 comedy-drama film directed by Neil Jordan and based on the novel of the same name by Patrick McCabe, as adapted by Jordan and McCabe...
Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTA)
- Nominated: Best Actor in a Feature Film (2003, January's biennial ceremony), Disco PigsDisco PigsDisco Pigs is a 2001 Irish film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Enda Walsh, who adapted it from his 1996 play of the same name. Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy star as Cork teenagers who have a lifelong, but unhealthy, friendship that is imploding as they approach adulthood.-Plot:The...
- Nominated: Best Actor in a Film, and Best Actor/Public Vote (2003, November's first annual ceremony), 28 Days Later28 Days Later28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
- Nominated: Best Irish Actor in a Feature Film (2005), Red EyeRed Eye (film)Red Eye is a 2005 thriller film directed by Wes Craven and starring Rachel McAdams as a hotel manager ensnared in an assassination plot by a terrorist while aboard a red-eye flight to Miami. The film score was composed and conducted by Marco Beltrami.-Plot:Lisa Reisert fears flying...
- Nominated: Best Supporting Actor in a Feature Film (2005), Batman BeginsBatman BeginsBatman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,...
- Won: Best Actor Lead Film (2007), Breakfast on Pluto (also nominated for The Wind That Shakes the BarleyThe Wind That Shakes the Barley (film)The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Irish war drama film directed by Ken Loach, set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War...
in the same category) - Nominated: Actor in a Lead Role in a Feature Film (2008), SunshineSunshine (2007 film)Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass...
- Nominated: Actor in a Lead Role Film (2011), Perrier's BountyPerrier's BountyPerrier's Bounty is an Irish crime thriller comedy set in modern-day Dublin. Describing it as an "urban western", sophomore director Ian Fitzgibbon directs the film, which stars Brendan Gleeson, who plays the villainous title character, as well as Cillian Murphy and Jim Broadbent as son and...
- Nominated: Actor in a Supporing Role Film (2011), InceptionInceptionInception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995 is a compilation of unreleased tracks by the band Download.-Track listing:# "Primitive Tekno Jam" – 3:23# "Bee Sting Sickness" – 8:04# "Weed Acid Techno" – 8:19...
Other awards
- Nominated: 8th Empire Awards8th Empire AwardsThe 8th Empire Awards , honoring the best in film in 2002, were held on February 5, 2003 at The Dorchester Hotel and hosted by Richard E. Grant. Below is a complete list of nominees and winners...
Best Newcomer (2003), 28 Days Later - Nominated: MTV Movie AwardsMTV Movie AwardsThe MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
, Breakthrough Male Performance (2004), 28 Days Later - Nominated: London Film Critics Circle AwardsLondon Film Critics CircleThe London Film Critics' Circle is the name by which the Film Section of The Critics' Circle is known internationally.The word London was added because it was thought the term Critics' Circle Film Awards lacked meaning — for people in LA for example — and the Film Section wished its annual Awards...
, British Actor in a Supporting Role (2005), Batman Begins - Nominated: Satellite AwardsSatellite AwardsThe Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards.- Film :*Best Actor – Drama*Best Actor – Musical or Comedy*Best Actress – Drama...
, Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical (2005), Breakfast on Pluto - Nominated: British Independent Film AwardsBritish Independent Film AwardsThe Moët British Independent Film Awards is an annual award ceremony celebrating achievement in independently funded British film and cinema. Nominations and jury are announced at the beginning of November with the award ceremony taking place in late November or early December.-History:The British...
, Best Actor (2006), The Wind That Shakes the Barley - Nominated: European Film Awards, European Actor of the Year (2006), The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Breakfast on Pluto
- Won: European Film Festival Palic, Best Actor (2006), Breakfast on Pluto
- Nominated: MTV Movie Awards, Best Villain (2006), Batman Begins
- Nominated: Saturn Awards, Best Supporting Actor (2006), Red Eye
- Won: GQ UK Men of the Year Awards, Actor of the Year (2006)
- Nominated: British Independent Film Awards, Best Actor (2007), Sunshine
- Nominated: Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards, Best Acting Ensemble (2010), Inception
- Nominated: Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards, Best Ensemble Acting (2010), Inception
- Nominated: Central Ohio Film Critics Association Awards, Best Ensemble (2011), Inception