Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphyis an Irish actor of stage and screen. Since making his debut in his home country in the late 1990s, Murphy has also become a presence in British and American cinema—noted by critics for his performances in a wide range of roles...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth25 May 1976
CityDouglas, Ireland
CountryIreland
butterfly play television
I've always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I've talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I'll have more butterflies.
character thinking play
I think if you play characters, it's very important not to ever tag them with any sort of disorder, or diagnose them, or whatever. You have to normalize the behavior to get inside the character.
character play littles
It's obvious that if you're going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they're in and use as little or as much as necessary
thinking play bakers
I don't think they'd ever make a movie about Chuck Baker but I'd love to play Chuck Baker
adopted crazy discovers father goes growing height ireland journey kid mad orphan parish played small town troubles
He's this kid growing up in a small town in Ireland in the 70's--you know the height of the troubles in Ireland, ... He discovers he's an adopted orphan and that his father is actually this parish priest, played by Liam Neeson. So it's just this crazy mad journey that he goes on to find his love.
noticed people time
That was the first time people noticed me in the U.S..
fun great irish script
That was a fun script and a lot of great Irish actors.
trying needs actors
You need to be as clean of a slate as you can be, as an actor. You have to try to be open to every experience.
motivation journey men
But television affords you, what you just described, to - over the course of 18 hours, now that we're doing a third season - tell the story of this man. You're not under any obligation, really, to do massive expositional stuff at the beginning. You're at liberty to say, "Come with us on this journey," and, gradually, you become aware of what his motivations are, what drives him, what his weaknesses are, what his strengths are. That's what I think's sucking people into these worlds, because it is kind of like a novel, you just go really, really deep.
thinking trying important
In terms of trying to improve as an actor, for me it's always important to return to the stage. After doing a piece of theater for a prolonged period, I can think I must have surely improved in some way as an actor - you must be fitter than you were prior to doing it. For me, theater is very, very important in keeping things fresh and dangerous.
kids thinking patient-person
I hope that I have gained some wisdom, but I don't know. I have kids, and that certainly puts things into perspective. I think I'm a more patient person. I hope I'm a more patient person. I'm a little more relaxed about the peripheral side of this business, which I used to find very confusing and alarming.
lucky youth good-work
I feel very lucky to be making good work still. The confidence of youth, or that sort of competitiveness you get when you're 22 or 23, the impatience - that's probably been tempered. Hopefully I'm slightly better company.
nice
It's always nice to be challenged.
important age acting
Then, at age 20, I discovered theater sort of by accident. Quite quickly, theater became more important to me than music. I began to realize that maybe my talents as a musician were quite limited, or had a ceiling to them, whereas acting seemed to sort of stretch before me. I got very passionate about it very quickly.