Line #40 Creator/CillianMurphy


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5	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cilian_murphy.png]]
6	[[caption-width-right:300:''[[Film/{{Oppenheimer}} The destroyer of worlds.]]'']]
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8	->''"Cillian Murphy, who has angelic looks that can turn sinister, is one of the most elegantly seductive monsters in recent movies."''
9	-->-- '''David Denby''', ''The New Yorker'' review of ''Film/RedEye''
10
11	''[[Film/BatmanBegins "Would you like to see]] my [[JustForFun/DescribeTopicHere TV Tropes Page?"]]''
12
13	Cillian Murphy (born May 25, 1976 in Douglas, UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}}) is an Academy Award-winning Irish actor.
14
15	He began his acting career in 1996, working on several stage productions, and started appearing in films in the early 2000s. His breakthrough role is widely considered to be 2002's ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'', where he played the main character, the apocalypse survivor Jim.
16
17	He's known mostly for three things. First, his chameleon-like ability to adapt to a wide variety of roles and inhabit them. Second, his amazingly blue eyes, and third, being extremely pretty. He started his career in entertainment as a rock musician. Since ''Film/BatmanBegins'', he is a regular collaborator of Creator/ChristopherNolan, with their 2023 collaboration ''Film/{{Oppenheimer}}'' winning him an Oscar for his role as the title character.
18
19	Cillian is a rather private fellow, and he doesn't normally discuss his personal life in interviews. He is married to visual artist Yvonne [=McGuiness=], and they have two sons, Malachy and Aran.
20	----
21	!!His roles include:
22
23	* ''Film/HowHarryBecameATree'': Gus Maloney
24	* ''Literature/TheWayWeLiveNow'': Paul Montague
25	* ''Film/DiscoPigs'': Pig/Darren
26	* ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'': Jim
27	* ''Film/ColdMountain'': Barrdolph
28	* ''Film/{{Intermission}}'': John
29	* ''Film/GirlWithAPearlEarring'' (He was cast as a butcher, which is quite ironic, because he was a vegetarian at the time): Pieter
30	* ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'': Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow
31	** ''Film/BatmanBegins''
32	** ''Film/TheDarkKnight''
33	** ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''
34	* ''Film/RedEye'': Jackson Rippner
35	* ''Film/BreakfastOnPluto'': Patrick/Patricia "Kitten" Braden
36	* ''Film/TheWindThatShakesTheBarley'': Damien
37	* ''{{Film/Sunshine}}'': Robert Capa
38	* ''Film/WatchingTheDetectives'': Neil
39	* ''Film/PerriersBounty'': Michael
40	* ''Film/{{Peacock}}'': John/Emma Skillpa
41	* ''Film/{{Inception}}'': Robert Fischer
42	* ''Film/TronLegacy'' (uncredited cameo): Edward Dillinger
43	* ''Film/InTime'': Raymond Leon
44	* ''Film/RedLights'': Tom Buckley
45	* ''Series/PeakyBlinders'': Thomas "Tommy" Shelby
46	* ''Film/{{Transcendence}}'': Agent Buchanon
47	* ''Film/{{Anthropoid}}'': Josef Gabcík
48	* ''Film/FreeFire'': Chris
49	* ''Film/{{Dunkirk}}'': Shivering Soldier
50	* ''Film/AQuietPlacePartII'': Emmett
51	* ''Film/{{Oppenheimer}}'': [[UsefulNotes/RobertOppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer]]
52
53	!! He provides examples of:
54
55	* ActorAllusion: In two Christopher Nolan movies he's starred in - ''Film/BatmanBegins'' and ''{{Film/Inception}}'' he has a bag put over his head.
56	* ActorInspiredElement: Jim of ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' was written to be English but Danny Boyle made him Irish to accommodate Cillian.
57	* CastTheRunnerUp: He auditioned for Batman in ''Batman Begins'' but lost to Creator/ChristianBale. Nolan thought he wasn't right physically, but was so impressed by the audition that he asked him to play the Scarecrow.
58	* CelebrityIsOverrated: He's made clear that he has little to no interest in fame and finds the hype around celebrities tedious and so stays out of the spotlight as much as possible.
59	* CreepyBlueEyes: On occasion, his striking blue eyes are used in this manner, most notably in ''Film/RedEye'' where his eyes were even what convinced Creator/WesCraven to cast him.
60	* DoingItForTheArt: He has said this is the Number One reason he does many of his films and he almost never does it for money.
61	* DyeingForYourArt: For certain roles, he's often lost and gained weight to look convincing as a certain character.
62	** For ''Film/{{Sunshine}}'', he underwent astronaut and stunt training, along with taking certain science courses to get into his physicist character.
63	** For ''Film/BreakfastOnPluto'', he often hung out with transgender people and did research on women's beauty regimens.
64	** For ''Series/PeakyBlinders'', he shaved his head into the [[https://i.imgur.com/1xI8FQH.jpg signature hairstyle]] of Tommy Shelby and hit the gym to put on 15 pounds of muscle. He's quite vocal about how much he hates the hairstyle, which may be why later seasons started to tone it down a little bit.
65	** Also adopted a buzzcut for ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'', as Jim gets an ImportantHaircut midway through.
66	** For ''Film/{{Dunkirk}}'' he did a lot of research into post-traumatic stress disorder, including talking to people who actually suffer from it.
67	* EnforcedMethodActing: ''{{Film/Sunshine}}'' saw the cast preparing for their roles by rooming together. Cillian left every night to see his pregnant wife, and this helped convey that Capa was somewhat of an outsider to the crew (WordOfGod saying he's the only character not to be a trained astronaut).
68	* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: A few of his roles, most notably [[Film/RedEye Jackson Rippner]] and [[Film/BatmanBegins Scarecrow]], make a point of contrasting his striking, androgynous good looks with his characters' depravity and sadism.
69	* FakeAmerican: In quite a few of his roles, a.o. in ''Batman Begins'', ''Red Eye'', ''Sunshine'', ''Inception'' [[note]]-- The character was probably a dual Australian and American citizen, but he definitely spoke with an American accent --[[/note]] and ''Red Lights''. He does the accent very well, considering how notoriously hard the Irish Accent is to shed. He was even skilled enough to fool casting directors who were shocked to find out afterwards that he wasn't really American. He also successfully adopted [[UsefulNotes/RobertOppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer]]'s more old-fashioned American accent for ''Film/{{Oppenheimer}}''.
70	* FakeBrit:
71	** ''28 Days Later'' started out with his character Jim being written as a Brit, but because he struggled with the accent, Jim was changed to be Irish instead so he could keep his natural accent.
72	** His Birmingham accent in ''Series/PeakyBlinders'' was shaky during the first season, but spot-on in season two.
73	** He has a more traditional example of this trope in ''{{Film/Dunkirk}}'', with the southern English accent.
74	* HollywoodHypeMachine: An example that went out of his way not to live too much up to it. In the mid-2000s, thanks to his roles in ''Batman Begins'', ''Red Eye'' and ''Breakfast on Pluto'' (which got him a Golden Globe nomination), he was touted as a "big star in the making". But between his discomfort with the Hollywood system and celebrity culture, as well as his annoyance with [[TypeCasting being approached solely for playing villainous roles]], he's preferred to stay out of the spotlight and take up roles in smaller-scale productions (unless he gets a call from Christopher Nolan).
75	* IcyBlueEyes: Just look at the page picture! His eyes stand out even more when his face is covered with his Scarecrow mask in Batman Begins (see the 2nd character picture in the Scarecrow folder on the [[Characters/TheDarkKnightTrilogyOtherCostumedCharacters character page]].
76	** Matt Damon said it was really hard doing scene work with him for Oppenheimer because "sometimes you find yourself just swimming in his eyes."
77	* ProductionPosse:
78	** He's worked with Creator/ChristopherNolan in ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' (all three movies), ''{{Film/Inception}}'', ''{{Film/Dunkirk}}'' and ''Film/{{Oppenheimer}}''.
79	** He's also worked with Creator/DannyBoyle on ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' and ''{{Film/Sunshine}}''.
80	* PlayingAgainstType: He starred opposite Lucy Liu in the romantic comedy ''Film/WatchingTheDetectives'' at a time when his mainstream success was due to being typecast as creepy villains.
81	* PromotedFanboy: He's stated he was a big fan of the first ''Film/{{Tron}}'' movie. He later got a cameo in ''Film/TronLegacy''.
82	* ReclusiveArtist: He’s very private and doesn’t give many interviews. He lives in Dublin and not London, eschews social media, and lives a normal life. It’s known he’s married and has two sons but his wife isn’t famous and his sons have only been publicly photographed a few times.
83	* SelfDeprecation:
84	** When asked how he would've portrayed Batman, he laughed and said, "Come on, do I really look like Batman material to you?"
85	** According to one fan that met him, she complimented him and called him attractive, earning her a look of surprise from him.
86	* SoftSpokenSadist: Very skilled at these roles, with his most famous being ''Film/RedEye'' and ''Film/BatmanBegins''. Although he's since sworn off villainous roles to avoid being typecast.
87	* StarMakingRole: ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' got the ball rolling, and ''Film/RedEye'' and ''Film/BatmanBegins'' catapulted him to household name status.
88	* {{Typecasting}}:
89	** After ''Film/BatmanBegins'' and ''Film/RedEye'' came out in the same year and became {{Star Making Role}}s for him, he became best known to mainstream movie goers for playing incredibly creepy villains. He's sworn off playing villains ({{antihero}}es like Tommy Shelby don't count) again, however, in the hopes of averting this.
90	** Meanwhile, in most of his more independent productions, he's known for playing [[TheEveryman everyman]] type characters.
91	* WhatBeautifulEyes: His stunning, bright blue eyes are his most striking feature, and are often mentioned by fans and press alike. Creator/ChristopherNolan admitted he kept finding excuses to have Crane take off his glasses during ''Film/BatmanBegins'' just to emphasize them more.

Context Creator / CillianMurphy