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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
Birth name
Cillian Murphy
Born
25 May 1976 (1976-05-25) (age 31)
Douglas, Cork, Ireland
Occupation
Actor
Years active
1996Ð-present
Spouse(s)
Yvonne McGuinness (2004Ð-present)
[show]Awards
IFTA Awards
Best Actor in a Film
2007 Breakfast on Pluto
Cillian Murphy[1] (born 25 May 1976) is an Irish film and theatre actor. He has appeared in diverse roles,[2][3] and has been cited as having distinctive blue eyes.[4][5]
A native of Cork, Murphy began his performing career as a rock musician. After turning down a record deal, he made his professional acting debut in the play Disco Pigs. He went on to star in a number of Irish and UK 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. Murphys best known roles are as villains in two 2005 blockbusters: the Scarecrow in the superhero film Batman Begins, and Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye. Next came two contrasting, widely acclaimed starring roles: his Golden Globe Award-nominated performance as transgendered outcast “Kitten” in 2005s Breakfast on Pluto and a turn as a 1920s Irish revolutionary in 2006 Palme dOr winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley. 2007 saw Murphy on the London stage in Love Song and onscreen in science fiction film Sunshine.
A resident of London since 2001, Murphy often works in or near London[6] and has no desire to move to Hollywood.[7] Uncomfortable on the celebrity circuit,[8] he customarily gives interviews about his work, but does not appear on television talk shows or discuss details of his private life with the press.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Early life and music
* 2 Acting career
o 2.1 Early work
o 2.2 Critical success
o 2.3 Recent roles and the future
* 3 Personal life
* 4 Stage and screen credits
o 4.1 Feature films
o 4.2 Short films
o 4.3 Television
o 4.4 Stage
* 5 Awards and nominations
o 5.1 Golden Globe Awards
o 5.2 BAFTA Awards
o 5.3 Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTA)
o 5.4 Other awards
* 6 References
* 7 External links
[edit] Early life and music
Born in Douglas, County Cork in Ireland,[9] Cillian Murphy is the oldest of four children.[10] His father, Brendan, works for the Irish Department of Education and his mother is a French teacher.[11] His aunts and uncles are also teachers, as was his grandfather.[12] Musicianship also runs in the family, and Murphy started playing music at about age 10.[13]
Murphy attended the Catholic school Presentation Brothers College, where he did well academically, though he was not keen on sport, a major part of life at the school.[11] There, Murphy got his first taste of performing, when he participated in 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,[14] but said that at this stage, performing meant dreams of becoming a rock star.[13]
In his late teens and early twenties, Murphy worked toward a career as a rock musician, playing guitar in several bands alongside his brother PДЎdraig.[13][15] The Beatles-obsessed pair named their most successful band, The Sons of Mr. Greengenes, after a 1969 song by another idol, Frank Zappa. Murphy sang and played guitar in the band, which he has said “specialised in wacky lyrics and endless guitar solos.”[16] In 1996,[14] The Sons of Mr. Greengenes were offered a five-album record deal by Acid Jazz Records,[16] but they did not sign the contract. Because Murphys brother was still in secondary school, their parents disapproved. Additionally, the contract offered little money and would have ceded the rights to Murphys compositions to the record label.[14]
The same year, Murphy began studying law at University College Cork (UCC), but he failed his first year exams because, as he put it, he had “no ambitions to do it.”[14] Not only was he busy with his band,[13] but he has admitted that he knew within days after starting at UCC that law was the wrong fit for his artistic personality.[12] Furthermore, after seeing Corcadorcas stage production of A Clockwork Orange, directed by Kiernan, acting had begun to pique his interest.[14] His first major role was in the UCC Drama Societys amateur 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, not to begin an acting career.[13] Nonetheless, he began to transition away from working as a rock musician, about which he later remarked, “I think theres such a thing as a performance gene. If its in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform.”[11]
[edit] Acting career
[edit] Early work
Murphy hounded Pat Kiernan until he got an audition at Corcadorca, and in September