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Cillian Murphy

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Cillian Murphy
Murphy at the N.Y. Film Festival premiere
of Breakfast on Pluto, 1 October 2005
Born
Cillian Murphy
Occupationactor
Years active1996–present
Spouseartist Yvonne McGuinness (2004–present)

Cillian[1] Murphy (born 25 May, 1976) is an Irish film and theatre actor active since 1996. He is noted for chameleonic performances in diverse roles,[2] as well as his distinctive blue eyes.[3][4]

A native of Cork, Murphy began his performing career as a rock musician. After a near miss with the music industry, at age 20 he made his professional acting debut in the play Disco Pigs. He went on to star in a number of 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. Supporting parts in Girl With a Pearl Earring and Cold Mountain quickly followed, but Murphy's best known roles are as villains in two 2005 blockbusters: the Scarecrow in Batman Begins, and Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye. Next came his Golden Globe Award-nominated performance as transgendered outcast "Kitten" in 2005's Breakfast on Pluto and a widely-praised turn as a 1920s Irish revolutionary in 2006 Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley. 2007 saw Murphy on the London stage in Love Song and onscreen in sci-fi film Sunshine.

A resident of London since 2001, Murphy often works in or near London[5] and has no desire to move to Hollywood. Uncomfortable on the celebrity circuit, Murphy customarily gives interviews about his work, but he does not appear on television talk shows or discuss details of his private life with the press.

Biography

Early life

Murphy was born in Douglas, County Cork in Ireland.[6] His father, Brendan, works for the Irish Department of Education and his mother is a French teacher.[7] The oldest of four children,[8] Murphy has one brother named Pádraig and two sisters named Sile and Orla.[9] Not only are his parents educators, but his aunts and uncles are also teachers, as was his grandfather.[10] Music also ran in the family, and Murphy started playing music at about age ten.[11]

Murphy attended the Catholic school Presentation Brothers College, Cork. He did well in school, although he was not keen on sport, which was a major part of life at PBC.[7] But it was there that Murphy got his first taste of performing, when at 16, he attended 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.[12] But at this stage, performing meant dreams of becoming a rock star.[11]

From music to acting

Originally, Murphy worked toward a career as a rock musician, playing guitar in several bands alongside his brother in his late teens and early twenties.[11][13] The Beatles-obsessed brothers named their most successful band The Sons of Mr. Greengenes, after a 1969 song by another idol, Frank Zappa. Murphy sang and played guitar. He has said the band "specialised in wacky lyrics and endless guitar solos."[14] In 1996,[12] The Sons of Mr. Greengenes were offered a five-album record deal by Acid Jazz Records.[14] They did not sign the contract, partly because Pádraig was still in secondary school, so their parents did not approve, and partly because the contract offered little money and would have ceded the rights to Murphy's compositions to the record label.[12]

By then, Murphy was studying law at University College Cork (UCC), but flunked his first year exams because his heart wasn't in it.[12] Not only was he busy with his band,[11] but he had known within days after starting at UCC that law was the wrong fit for his artistic personality.[10] Also, after seeing Corcadorca's stage production of A Clockwork Orange (directed by Pat Kiernan), acting had begun to pique his interest.[12] His first major role was in the UCC Drama Society 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 rather than to start an acting career.[11] Nonetheless, his transition from music to acting had begun.

Acting career

Early work

The untrained new actor hounded Pat Kiernan until he got an audition at Corcadorca,[12] and in September 1996, he made his professional acting debut on the stage,[15] originating the part of volatile Cork teenager "Pig" in Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs.[16] Murphy later observed, "I was unbelievably cocky and had nothing to lose, and it suited the part, I suppose."[17] Originally slated to run three weeks in Cork,[12] Disco Pigs ended up touring throughout Europe and in Canada and Australia for two years,[18] and Murphy left university[7] and his band.[13] 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.[2]

From 1997 to 2003, Murphy starred in independent films, such as John Carney's On the Edge, in short films, and in the BBC 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,[19] and Chekhov's The Seagull; Murphy considers this stage work to have been his "training ground."[2] 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.[20] During this period, he moved from Cork, relocating first to Dublin for a few years,[21] then to London in 2001.[22]

Murphy's onscreen performance as "Pig" caught the eye of director Danny Boyle when casting the lead for 28 Days Later.[2] Released in the U.K. in late 2002, by the following summer 28 Days Later had become a sleeper hit in America[23] and a major success worldwide, putting Murphy before a mass audience for the first time.[24] His performance as pandemic survivor Jim earned him nominations for Best Newcomer at the 2003 Empire Awards and Breakthrough Male Performance at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards, among others.[25] ComingSoon.net's rave 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."[26]

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).[27] 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.[28] 2004 found him touring Ireland in the titular role of the Irish classic, 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.[29] In addition, Murphy filmed three of his biggest movie roles to date.

Critical success

File:RedEye05.jpg
Murphy as Jackson Rippner in Red Eye, with Rachel McAdams

2005 was the year that Murphy won wider recognition for two high-profile villain roles, as Dr. Jonathan Crane/supervillain Scarecrow in Batman Begins, and as Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye. He originally auditioned for the role of Batman in Batman Begins. Though the part was given to Christian Bale, director Christopher Nolan was reportedly very impressed with Murphy's audition and persuaded him to take the role of Dr. Jonathan Crane, whose alter ego is the villain Scarecrow. In Wes Craven's critical[30] and box office smash[31] Red Eye, Murphy played an operative in an assassination plot who terrorizes Rachel McAdams on an overnight flight. Film critic Manohla Dargis raved 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."[32] Entertainment Weekly ranked Murphy among its 2005 "Summer MVPs", a cover story list of ten entertainers with outstanding breakthrough performances.[33] He 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.[34]

In late 2005 (early 2006 in Europe), Murphy starred as Patrick "Kitten" Braden, a transgendered Irish orphan in search of his mother, in Neil Jordan's dramedy Breakfast on Pluto, based on the novel of the same title by Patrick McCabe. Murphy auditioned for the role in 2001, and though Jordan liked him for the part, The Crying Game director was hesitant to revisit transgender and IRA 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.[13]

File:Cillian Murphy - Brkft on Pluto.jpg
Murphy as "Kitten" in Breakfast on Pluto

Against Breakfast on Pluto's kaleidoscopic backdrop of 1970s glitter rock fashion, magic shows, red light districts and IRA violence, Murphy transforms from androgynous teen to high drag blond bombshell. The San Francisco Chronicle's 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."[35] While even lukewarm reviews of Breakfast on Pluto still tended to praise Murphy's performance very highly,[36], a few critics dissented; The Village Voice, which panned the film, found him "unconvincing" and overly cute.[37]

Murphy was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Breakfast on Pluto (Joaquin Phoenix won for Walk the Line), and won the Irish Film and Television Academy Best Actor Award.[38] Premiere cited his performance as Kitten in their "The 24 Finest Performances of 2005" feature.[6] All three of his 2005 performances were honored by Entertainment Weekly, when they included him in their "Great Performances of 2005" year-end issue.[39]

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, toppling Intermission from the top spot.[27] Murphy's performance as young doctor Damien O'Donovan was highly praised. David Denby of The New Yorker described his approach to the part: "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."[4]

In the summer of 2006, Murphy and Lucy Liu shot Paul Soter's romantic comedy, Watching the Detectives, an indie film which premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival[40] but hasn't yet been slated for general release.[41] Murphy returned to the stage from November 2006 to February 2007 in the lead role of John Kolvenbach's play Love Song, opposite Neve Campbell, in London's West End.[42] In 2007, he starred as a physicist-astronaut charged with reigniting the sun in the 2007 sci-fi movie Sunshine, which re-teamed him with director Danny Boyle.[5]

In the late spring of 2007, Murphy shot The Edge of Love with Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys in Wales and London.[43] In September 2007, Murphy shoots Hippie Hippie Shake (again alongside Sienna Miller), starring as Richard Neville, editor of the psychedelic radical underground magazine Oz, which was at the center of what was then the longest obscenity trial in British history.[44]

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.[17] In 2005, he commented, "I don't know if they're going to ever make a movie about jazz trumpeter/singer Chet Baker but if they do, I'd love to play him."[45] Murphy would like to work with director Michel Gondry someday;[46] among the actors he hopes to work with are Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.[28] He also admires Jeff Bridges and Sean Penn.[47] When Jane asked him which celebrity he'd like to make out with, he picked Maggie Gyllenhaal, calling her "pretty foxy" and "smart."[48] Not wishing to be typecast or repeat himself, Murphy says he does not want to play any more villains.[47][49] Although he does not want to move to Los Angeles because of the cultural differences[46] and distance from his family[47], Murphy feels it is both wise and artistically worthwhile for him to make both big Hollywood pictures and smaller independent films.[50]

Personal life

Murphy married his long-time[8] live-in girlfriend, artist Yvonne McGuinness, in the summer of 2004 in Provence, France. The couple live in west London, England, with their son Malachy,[14] who was born in late 2005.[13] Murphy is known for being reticent to speak about his personal life. He frequently gives interviews about his work but does not do TV chat show appearances where actors customarily share information about their private lives.[8] He does not have a stylist[47] or a personal publicist, travels sans entourage,[8] 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."[51] He is friends with fellow Irish actors Colin Farrell[52] and Liam Neeson, and looks up to the latter like a "surrogate movie dad."[53] But primarily, Murphy's close friends are those he made before becoming a star.[49][54]

Music is still a big 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."[12] He no longer plays in a rock band, but regularly plays music with friends and on his own.[54] 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."[14] Murphy is also a dedicated runner.[55]

Though raised Catholic before turning agnostic in his teens, Murphy ultimately became an atheist after researching his role as a nuclear physicist/astronaut in the science fiction film Sunshine.[56] He is a longtime vegetarian, but not due to any opposition to the killing of animals, which he considers part of nature, but because of qualms about unhealthy agribusiness practices.[57] Son-in-law to John J. McGuinness, a TD in the Irish parliament, Murphy participated in the 2007 Rock the Vote Ireland campaign targeting young voters for the general election.[54] He has also campaigned for the rights of the homeless with the organization Focus Ireland.[58]

Stage and screen credits

Feature films

Short films

  • Quando (1997) ... as Pat[60]
  • Eviction (1999) ... as Brendan McBride[5]
  • At Death's Door (1999) ... as The Grim Reaper, Jr.[61]
  • Filleann an Feall (also known as The Treachery Returns) (2000) ... as Ger[62]
  • A Man of Few Words (2000) ... as Best Man[5]
  • Watchmen (2001) ... as Phil, also co-wrote script with director Paloma Baeza[29]
  • The Silent City (2006)[63]

Television

Stage

Awards and nominations

Golden Globe Awards

BAFTA Awards

Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTA)

Critics' and film festival awards

Other awards

References

  1. ^ Pronounced "Killyann" (though often mispronounced "Sillian").
  2. ^ a b c d Riley, Jenelle. "Luck of the Irish", Backstage, 18 November 2005. Accessed 9 August 2007.
  3. ^ Murray, Rebecca. "Cillian Murphy Talks About Red Eye", About.com, 6 August 2005. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  4. ^ a b Denby, David. "Taking Sides", The New Yorker, 19 March 2007. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Cillian Murphy - Filmography, IMDb.
  6. ^ a b Lytal, Cristy. "The 24 Finest Performances of 2005: Cillian Murphy", Premiere, February 2006. Accessed 19 July 2007.
  7. ^ a b c Walsh, John. "Murphy's lore: Meet the action hero who looks on the verge of tears", The Independent, 31 March 2007. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  8. ^ a b c d Wolf, Matt. "Acting Up", Strut, March 2004. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  9. ^ Scott, Richard. "TW: Cillian Murphy", RainbowNetwork.com, 18 January 2006. Accessed 19 July 2007.
  10. ^ a b Clayton-Lea, Tony. "Bright Young Thing", Electric Mail, November 2006. Accessed 24 July 2007.
  11. ^ a b c d e O'Donoghue, Donal. "Western Hero", RTÉ Guide, 6 February 2004.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Jackson, Joe. "From Cork to Gotham", Sunday Independent Life Magazine, 8 February 2004.
  13. ^ a b c d Kaufman, Anthony. "Blue Streak", Time Out New York, 10 November 2005. Accessed 19 July 2007.
  14. ^ a b c d O'Hagan, Sean. "'I just want to challenge myself with each role'", The Observer, 11 June 2006. Accessed 8 August 2007.
  15. ^ Guerin, Harry. "Lucky star - Cillian Murphy", RTE.ie, 20 September 2001. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  16. ^ Disco Pigs, IrishPlayography.com. Accessed 8 August 2007.
  17. ^ a b Abramowitz, Rachel. "Cillian Murphy: More to offer than pale blue eyes", The Los Angeles Times, 8 March 2007. Accessed 10 March 2007.
  18. ^ a b Disco Pigs, Corcadorca.com. Accessed 19 July 2007.
  19. ^ a b The Shape of Things, Gate-Theatre.ie. Accessed 25 June 2007.
  20. ^ Soundtracks for Disco Pigs, IMDb.
  21. ^ Heller, Scott. "Murphy's law: seek diversity", The Boston Globe, 1 January 2006. Accessed 22 August 2007.
  22. ^ Edwards, Sally A. "Cillian Murphy", Blag, July 2006.
  23. ^ Diorio, Carl. "Summer summary: A fish tale", Variety, August 3, 2003. Accessed 17 August 2007.
  24. ^ Box office/business for 28 Days Later..., IMDb.
  25. ^ Cillian Murphy - Awards, IMDb.
  26. ^ Douglas, Edward. 28 Days Later, ComingSoon.net, 2003. Accessed 30 July 2007.
  27. ^ a b "Loach Film Sets New Money Mark", RTE.ie, 8 August 2006. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  28. ^ a b Crewe, Charity. "The Butcher Boy", Irish Tatler, February 2004.
  29. ^ a b c d e "Cillian Murphy", LisaRichards.ie (Murphy's agent's website). Accessed 10 April 2007.
  30. ^ Red Eye, Rotten Tomatoes.
  31. ^ Cillian Murphy - Box Office Data Movie Star, The-Numbers.com.
  32. ^ Dargis, Manohla. "Sticking Out a Tense Flight With a Terrorist as Seatmate", The New York Times, 19 August 2005. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  33. ^ Jensen, Jeff. "Summer's MVPs", Entertainment Weekly, 26 August 2005. Accessed 19 July 2007.
  34. ^ 2006 MTV Movie Awards, MTV Movie Awards Archive. Accessed 28 July 2007.
  35. ^ Stein, Ruthe. "Walking on thin gender line in search of love", The San Francisco Chronicle, 23 December 2005. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  36. ^ Breakfast on Pluto, Metacritic.
  37. ^ Atkinson, Michael. "Men Are From Mars, Bad Transvestite Movies Are From Pluto", The Village Voice, 15 November 2005. Accessed 21 August 2007.
  38. ^ "Eva and Cillian take film accolades", AOL Entertainment U.K., 12 February 2007. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  39. ^ Drumming, Neil. "The Great Performances of 2005: Cillian Murphy", Entertainment Weekly, 30 December 2005. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  40. ^ Heller, Katherine. "Katharine Heller Talks with Paul Soter About His Film, Watching The Detectives", NewYorkCool.com, May 2007. Accessed 18 August 2007.
  41. ^ Release dates for Watching the Detectives, IMDb.
  42. ^ a b Love Song, New Ambassadors Theatre site. Accessed 25 June 2007.
  43. ^ The Edge of Love, IMDb.
  44. ^ a b Fleming, Michael and Dawtrey, Adam. "Hippie grooves for Universal", Variety, 2 May 2007. Accessed 2 May 2007.
  45. ^ Epstein, Daniel Robert. "Cillian Murphy", SuicideGirls.com, 4 November 2005. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  46. ^ a b Franck-Dumas, Elisabeth. "Killer Talent", Vogue, December 2005.
  47. ^ a b c d Tenorman, Scott. "60 Second Interview: Cillian Murphy", Metro, 12 January 2006. Accessed 22 August 2007.
  48. ^ Trong, Stephanie. "The Same Five Questions We Always Ask", Jane, August 2003.
  49. ^ a b Naughton, John. "Actor of the Year - Cillian Murphy", GQ UK, October 2006.
  50. ^ Gottlieb, Akiva. "Q&A: Cillian Murphy", Nerve, 16 March 2007. Accessed 22 August 2007.
  51. ^ Brady, Tara. "Here Comes the Sun", Hot Press, 19 April 2007. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  52. ^ Didcock, Barry. "The Man Behind the Mask: The Scarecrow Speaks", The Sunday Herald, 12 June 2005. Archived on FindArticles.com, accessed 21 July 2007.
  53. ^ Halper, Jenny. "Interview: Cillian Murphy on Breakfast on Pluto", Cinema Confidential, 15 November 2005. Accessed 20 July 2007.
  54. ^ a b c Cashin, Declan. "Reluctant Hero", Irish Independent, 6 April 2007. Accessed 6 August 2007.
  55. ^ Odell, Michael. "The Cult of Cillian", Elle UK, March 2007.
  56. ^ Fulton, Rick. "Danny's New Golden Boy", The Daily Record, 30 March 2007. Accessed 18 July 2007.
  57. ^ Wallick, Lee. "A, B, Cillian–Z", Wonderland, April/May 2007.
  58. ^ Cunningham, Grainne. "Plea From Playboy Star Puts Problems of Young Homeless People Into the Spotlight", Irish Independent, 24 February 2004.
  59. ^ Dawtrey, Adam. "Once director remains close to roots: Carney to make Zonad before Fox's House", Variety, 17 August 2007. Accessed 17 August 2007.
  60. ^ Quando, DeclanRecks.com. Accessed 25 June 2007.
  61. ^ At Death's Door, AtomFilms.com. Accessed 25 June 2007.
  62. ^ Gearrscannáin, Oideas-Gael.com. Accessed 25 June 2007.
  63. ^ The Silent City, RuairiRobinson.com. Accessed 25 June 2007.
  64. ^ The Seagull, EdinburghGuide.com. Accessed 25 June 2007.
  65. ^ The Playboy of the Western World, DruidTheatre.com. Accessed 25 June 2007.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cillian_Murphy&oldid=153174024"