You might find Cillian Murphy—who has cool blue eyes and sculpted cheekbones—to have a calm and collected demeanor and not much interest in talking. Not really, though. He enjoys discussing art and his work. But he considers it “unnecessary” when people ask him, “Tell me about yourself…”
Murphy’s Oppenheimer press tour is coming to an end, with only a few weeks remaining in his Oscar campaign. The actor’s portrayal of the lead in Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb epic has earned him a nomination for Best Actor. Murphy could have prevented the press tour from starting in the first place. The actor, 47, acknowledged in a recent GQ cover story that he would rather let the movies handle the major promotional work, also adding that press tours are a “broken model”.
Cillian Murphy’s Refreshingly Honest Take on Press Tours
It is clear from many of his interviews that Cillian Murphy has a somewhat reserved nature. He expressed his belief that movie promotion junkets and red-carpet interviews are outdated in a recent interview with GQ. Speaking about the Hollywood press tour system, he admitted that he was a little relieved when the SAG-AFTRA strike started right before Oppenheimers’s premiere because it meant there would not be any more press opportunities for a while.
“I think it’s a broken model. The model is—everybody is so bored.. Same was the case with ‘Peaky Blinders’. The first three seasons there was no advertising, a tiny show on BBC Two; it just caught fire because people talked to each other about it.”
Murphy made it clear that he is against the superficial monotony of the press, not the idea behind the medium. For him-
“It’s like Joanne Woodward said, ‘Acting is like s*x—do it, don’t talk about it’. People always used to say to me, ‘He has reservations’ or ‘He’s a difficult interviewee.’ Not really! I love talking about work, about art. What I struggle with, and find unnecessary, and unhelpful about what I want to do, is: ‘Tell me about yourself…’”
Murphy also added that he does not watch his own movies, saying in particular that “the ones I hear are not good”. Wes Craven’s 2005 thriller Red Eye was one film he remembered as not one of his favorites.
Cillian Murphy Prefers to Believe that He Is Pretty Boring
Above all, Cillian Murphy is just a regular man, a recluse, a father, a husband, and a former law student. What he really wants is normalcy, away from red carpets and flashing cameras. He acknowledged this in a conversation with The Standard:
“Ideally I’d like to do one job a year and spend the rest as a civilian.”
His reserved demeanor might be a facade; one cannot be sure. As he told Men’s Health, the Peaky Blinders star is actually pretty boring. At least that is what he liked to believe:
“My life is very simple. I read a lot of books. I watch a lot of movies. Listen to a lot of music. Walk the dog. Cook. Be with my family.”
It seems that the reserved actor, who is well-known for preferring to stay out of the spotlight, has a reason for his behavior. The father of two earlier informed The Irish Times:
“I see myself as an actor. … And my job is to portray other people. The less that people know about me the better I can portray other people. That seems glaringly obvious and logical to me.”
He recently won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award as the lead in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023). With over $959 million in box office receipts worldwide, Universal Pictures’ 180-minute film has become the highest-grossing biographical drama in cinematic history.
Oppenheimer is available to rent on Apple TV.
