The face that turned J. Robert Oppenheimer into a Best Actor win in 2023 belongs to an Irish actor who spent two decades doing horror, Nolan ensemble pieces, and a Birmingham gangster before the Academy noticed.
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Photos 6
Murphy (second from right) with Tim Smyth, Eoin O'Sullivan and Maria-Theresa Grandfield in 1992
Murphy at the 2005 New York Film Festival
Murphy (far left) with the cast of Inception in 2010
Murphy at the premiere of the second season of Peaky Blinders in 2014
Murphy at a press conference for The Party at the Berlinale in 2017In their own words 10
I come from theater, and I love acting with my body.
"How Cillian Murphy Found His ‘Resting Physicist’s Face’" in Vulture (10 March 2024)
We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world.
"Cillian Murphy Wins Best Actor: “I Would Really Like to Dedicate This to the Peacemakers”" in Vanity Fair (10 March 2024)
You find so much empathy in novels, you know, because there you are putting yourself into somebody else's point of view, and I've always been a big reader.
""Oppenheimer" star Cillian Murphy on the preparation, hard work and instinct behind his acting" in CBS (18 February 2024)
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SpotifyFilmography 40
The Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight
Inception
Oppenheimer
Batman Begins
28 Years Later
28 Days Later
Dunkirk
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man
In Time
TRON: Legacy
A Quiet Place Part II
Sunshine
Anna
Transcendence
In the Heart of the Sea
Red Eye
Cold Mountain
Red Lights
Small Things Like These
Free Fire
Anthropoid
Girl with a Pearl Earring
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
The Party
Breakfast on Pluto
The Edge of Love
Steve
Retreat
Broken
Peacock
Watching the Detectives
The Trench
Intermission
Perrier's Bounty
Aloft
Kensuke's Kingdom
Disco Pigs
On the Edge98 credits on file
Television 16
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Late Night with Seth Meyers
The Graham Norton Show
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Peaky Blinders
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
Golden Globe Awards
60 Minutes
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
The Oscars
The Way We Live Now
A World of Calm
Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth
The Irish Revolution
Fight for First: Excel Esports
Untitled Peaky Blinders SequelAwards 5
Timeline 7
In their orbit 1
Connected to Cillian 6
About this person
Cillian Murphy started on stage in Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs in 1996, then moved to film with 28 Days Later in 2002. He played a transgender woman in Breakfast on Pluto in 2005, earning his first Golden Globe nomination, and appeared in The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Red Eye, and Sunshine through the mid-2000s. Christopher Nolan cast him across five films - the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk - before handing him the lead in Oppenheimer, which won Murphy the Academy Award, BAFTA, and Golden Globe for Best Actor in 2023. Between Nolan projects he anchored six seasons of Peaky Blinders as Tommy Shelby, a role that carried into a 2026 film continuation.
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