Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” rides on the slight but sturdy shoulders of Irish actor Cillian Murphy.
And that’s Cillian with a hard K – get to know it.
Murphy’s performance as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led development of the atomic bomb that ended World War II, is one that may explode his fame, going from “I know I’ve seen him somewhere” status to Oscar-contending familiar face.
Not that Murphy, 47, is eager for the spotlight to grow hotter.
“Honestly, this may sound predictable, but I don’t think about that sort of stuff,” Murphy told USA TODAY in an interview before the start of the Screen Actors Guild strike. “It’s not going to do you any good. I just think about the work.”
Here’s a primer on one of this summer’s acting supernovas:
Who is Cillian Murphy?
Murphy grew up in a suburb of Cork, Ireland, and was active in plays as a teen. He first appeared on the big screen in 2001 in the film adaptation of an Irish play he starred in called “Disco Pigs.”
That was followed a year later by a haunting performance in Danny Boyle’s apocalyptic thriller “28 Days Later,” set in a post-nuclear holocaust world that interestingly is a central fear coursing through “Oppenheimer.” Murphy has appeared in around 50 movies and half a dozen television shows.
In 2004, Murphy married his longtime girlfriend Yvonne McGuinness; the couple has two teenage sons. Murphy and his family live in Dublin, deliberately far from Hollywood. He is notoriously red carpet-shy and prefers the relative anonymity of his native Ireland.
What is Cillian Murphy’s biggest role to date?
If there’s a hint of recognition from movie and TV fans when they see Murphy’s face, that’s likely foremost due to his star turn in the Netflix series, “Peaky Blinders,” a drama based on the exploits of a British crime gang that operated after World War I. Murphy played Thomas Shelby, leader of the Birmingham flat cap brigade, in the series that was among Netflix’s most popular at the time.
Have Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan collaborated before?
Many times. In fact, Murphy has been a go-to pick for Nolan in six movies, with this latest, “Oppenheimer,” being the first time Murphy has taken the lead role.
Their collaborations include Murphy’s performance as the Scarecrow in three Batman movies, “Batman Begins” (2005), “The Dark Knight” (2008) and “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012).
In 2010, Murphy played the role of a business tycoon’s heir in “Inception,” and in 2017 played a shell-shocked solider in the World War II historical epic, “Dunkirk.”
Why did Christopher Nolan pick Cillian Murphy for the role of Oppenheimer?
Nolan says he never writes a movie script with specific actors in mind. But when he was staring at the cover of the book “American Prometheus,” by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, from which “Oppenheimer” is adapted, he knew who his leading man would be.
“I saw that photo (of Robert Oppenheimer) on the cover of the book, with that intense blue-eyed stare, and I thought, ‘I know who can do this,’ ” says Nolan. “I called him and said ‘This is the one. You’ll take center stage and carry the audience with you.’ ”
Murphy at first was terrified, Nolan says. In a good way. “He was frightened to just the right degree,” he says. “He knew he had to do a lot of work, and you’re looking for that in an artist. I didn’t want an imitation. I was looking for our interpretation of this man.”
What was Cillian Murphy’s reaction to seeing ‘Oppenheimer’ for the first time?
Murphy says he was “emotionally winded” after screening the completed three-hour film, which was shot in 70mm IMAX.
“I was knocked out really, it’s hard to take it all in,” he says. “It was a movie that I felt grabbed me by the throat and didn’t let go for three hours. I believe it’s Chris’s magnum opus.”
Will Murphy see ‘Barbie,’ the other part of the ‘Barbenheimer’ blockbuster movie weekend?
“For sure, 100%,” says Murphy. “I’m a fan of (“Barbie” director) Greta Gerwig, of (lead actress Margot) Robbie and Ryan (Gosling who plays Ken).”
Murphy says his teenage sons “keep showing me these things on social media where people are saying they’re going to go to one movie and then straight into the other, and I think that’s just great for our industry.”
The ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon:How a movie meme inspired the ‘crazy, weird’ double feature
What’s next for Cillian Murphy?
Murphy has produced and acts in an upcoming movie called “Small Things Like These,” based on the award-winning historical novel by Irish writer Claire Keegan.
The movie follows a small-town Irish coal merchant, Bill Furlong (Murphy) who on a delivery to a convent discovers a haunting secret that forces him to confront his own and his town’s past.
With that wrapped up, might a relaxing break be next for the exacting actor, whose on-set intensity echoes that of British-born and Ireland-homesteading acting giant, three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis?
“I’m not great at taking vacations, man,” says Murphy. “But maybe that’s why I only do a film a year. It takes too much out of me.”
