Cillian Murphy (/ˈkɪliən/ KILL-ee-ən; born 25 May 1976) is an Irish actor. He made his professional debut in EndaWalsh's 1996 play Disco Pigs, a role he later reprised in the 2001 screen adaptation. His early film credits include the horror film 28 Days Later (2002), the dark comedy Intermission (2003), the thriller Red Eye (2005), the Irish war drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), and the science fiction thriller Sunshine (2007). He played a transgender Irish woman in the comedy-drama Breakfaston Pluto (2005), which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.
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Murphy in 2024
Born: May 25, 1976 (age 47) Cork, Ireland
Occupations • Actor • producer
Years active: 1996-present
Works: Disco Pigs 28 Days Later Intermission Girl with a Pearl Earring Batman Begins Red Eye Breakfast on Pluto The Dark Knight The Edge of Love The Dark Knight Rises Dunkirk A Quiet Place Part II Oppenheimer The Way We Live Now Peaky Blinders Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth The Irish Revolution Fight for First: Excel Esports
Spouse: Jacqueline Nolan (m. 2008)
Children: 7
Awards: Academy Awards BAFTA Awards Golden Globe Awards Screen Actors Guild Awards
Murphy began his collaboration with filmmaker Christopher Nolan in 2005, playing Scarecrow in The Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012) as well as appearing in Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017). He also gained greater prominence for his role as Tommy Shelby in the BBC period drama series Peaky Blinders (2013-2022) and for starring in the horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II (2020). He won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and received a nomination for an Academy Award for portraying the title role in Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023).
In 2011, Murphy won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for the one-man playMisterman. In 2020, The Irish Times named him one of the greatest Irish film actors of all time.
Personal Information
In 2008, Murphy married his girlfriend of a year Jacqueline Nolan, whom he met at an after-party of TheDevil Wears Prada in 2006. They lived in Dublin until 2008, when they moved to London so his wife could attend the Royal College of Art. After 14 years, they moved back to Dublin in 2022. They have two sons, born in December 2009 and July 2008. And two daughters born 2011 and 2013. They have a set of twins born in 2016, and another son born in 2023.
Murphy was raised Roman Catholic and had been verging on agnosticism until researching his role as a physicist and astronaut in the 2007 film Sunshine, which confirmed his atheism. In 2019, he stated that the Catholic faith still shaped his morality. He was a vegetarian for around 15 years, which he said happened because he was "worried about getting mad cow disease" rather than a moral decision. He also had qualms about unhealthy agribusiness practices. He began eating meat again to bulk up for his role in Peaky Blinders. In a 2022 interview, he said he had returned to vegetarianism.
