Despite all the acting accolades, Cillian Murphy’s No. 1 achievement is the life he has built with his family.
“Middle age is really interesting,” Murphy, 49, told The Times of London in a Saturday, February 28, profile. “You’ve had children and been successful and then hit this certain age and think, ‘All right, this is the first time I’ve got less time left than I’ve had so far on this planet.’”
He added, “I’m turning 50 in a few months, so I do think, ‘Well, what do I do now?’ Hopefully, I can just be a reasonable dad and husband, and then, when it comes, still take the work incredibly seriously.”
The Oppenheimer star has been married to wife Yvonne McGuinness since 2004, later welcoming two sons.
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“By the time I get back on set, it will have been 15 months since I last worked,” Murphy further joked to The Times. “Most of the time, I’m at home, walking the dog.”
As for his career, Murphy recently reprised his Peaky Blinders role as Tommy Shelby in the upcoming film, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man.
“I was 35 when we started and 48 when we made the film,” he mused to the outlet. “I’ve played Tommy for over a quarter of my life, moving from being a youngish man right into the teeth of middle age. It’s incredibly rewarding seeing everybody around you get older.”
While filming six seasons of Peaky Blinders, Murphy watched his costars’ personal lives evolve.
“That is one of the consequences of doing something for such a long time. We lost Helen,” he continued, referring to Helen McCrory, who played Tommy’s aunt Helen, who died in 2021 after a battle with cancer.
Murphy added, “People had babies, got married. “People changed their lives.”
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While Murphy was always proud of his work on Peaky Blinders, he wasn’t sure whether the show would become the bonafide success that it is today.
“It wasn’t an instant hit,” Murphy told the British newspaper. “People thought that it was OK, but its second series was when it really clicked and people are still discovering it. A film will come and be hot or not and then it’s gone. But TV? It’s like a novel — people find it.”
Whether it be Peaky Blinders or Oppenheimer, Murphy has developed a penchant for playing complicated characters.
“I respond to the fallibility of everyone and the fact most people are trying to do the right thing,” he said of choosing roles. “That is the struggle of being alive and it sounds really pretentious, but in Oppenheimer he had to work out how to rationalize the fact that he was the father of the atomic bomb yet still get up in the morning to put his f***ing shoes on.”
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Murphy continued, “In that struggle there is great drama but everyone walks around in that contradictory way of living. Most of us are struggling to be good but just get derailed, make mistakes, before getting back on course.”
One role that Murphy hasn’t accepted, however, is that of Voldemort in the forthcoming Harry Potter TV series despite widespread rumors.
“I’m categorically not,” Murphy said, denying claims that he was taking over Ralph Fiennes’ nefarious character. “Being a personality is not what I am good at. But then existing in this world? Talking about yourself, going on f***ing red carpets? It’s not healthy if you start to believe this s***, and I’m really bad at it, too. I’m an incredibly average person, really.”
