“I’ve never seen a greater sacrifice from a leading actor in my entire career,” Robert Downey Jr. said in a recent interview with the People -Magazine. The Iron Man actor spoke about Cillian Murphy, with whom he can currently be seen in Oppenheimer in the cinema. A special film: Murphy leads a Hollywood blockbuster for the first time in 16 years.
The lavish biopic about the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer takes place during the Second World War and tells of the creation of the first atomic bomb. In a mixture of historical film and thriller, Murphy shines as if he were regularly shouldering three-hour Hollywood epics. In fact, he’s rarely done so, even though he was close to doing so in the late 2000s.
The radical zombie thriller 28 Days Later paved the way for Cillian Murphy to Hollywood
Cillian Murphy, born in 1976, was one of the first great acting discoveries of the 21st century. In a film world that was looking for fresh faces, he came at just the right time. He rose to fame in his native country in 2001 with his raw performance in the Irish drama On the Edge (directed by Once director John Carney). The international breakthrough followed a year later: 28 Days Later.
20th Century Studios
Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later
Just as radical as Danny Boyle’s digital reimagining of the zombie myth was Murphy’s acting. Between youthful innocence and the despairing look of a man who has seen the abyss of the world, he ran through London’s deserted streets with infected hot on his heels. And never gave us reason to believe that he is the hero of the story.
Although Murphy stars in 28 Days Later, he lacks the composure of a classic protagonist. The Jim he embodies is confronted with a huge uncertainty: When he wakes up from the coma, the world has ended. Unable to hold on to anything from his old life, he drifts helplessly around. However, exactly the opposite is expected of a leading man. You have to be able to classify him immediately.
Cillian Murphy could have been the leading man with Sunshine, but Hollywood didn’t trust him
In 2007, Murphy returned to the camera for Boyle and faced an even greater uncertainty: the dying sun. In Sunshine he plays the physicist Robert Capa, who wants to save the sun (and thus the earth) with a bomb. The parallels to Oppenheimer cannot be overlooked. Especially not when the sun’s light is reflected in Murphy’s eyes like the explosion of the atomic bomb.
20th Century Fox
Cillian Murphy in Sunshine
Sunshine is an exceptional blockbuster that combines different genres – from science fiction to horror and psychological thrillers. When the film was released, however, Hollywood was unwilling to give Murphy the long-term place in the spotlight he’d earned in previous years through strong supporting roles in Girl with a Pearl Earring, Cold Mountain and Red Eye.
What made him a mesmerizing screen presence in the 2000s suddenly became Murphy’s undoing: Five years after 28 Days Later, audiences still didn’t know if they could trust him. He was denied the rise to leading actor. Instead, he perfected the shady role type that shaped his first encounter with Christopher Nolan: Batman Begins.
In the Dark Knight trilogy, Murphy appears as the villain Scarecrow, who, thanks to toxic gases, turns into a monster – but only in the minds of his enemies. As harmless as Murphy’s form seems: within a very short time he becomes the ultimate nightmare opponent. Emily Blunt found out the same thing when she bumped into him in the horror sequel A Quiet Place 2. Now she plays his wife in Oppenheimer.
For nine years, Cillian Murphy played the leading role on television, which he never got in the cinema
We can stare straight into Murphy’s face for two hours without realizing which side he’s really on. He even finds an ambivalence in figures whose essence is actually described with crystal clarity. No leading man in Hollywood ticks like that. No wonder Murphy has found his biggest role to date in the grim gangster series Peaky Blinders (2013-2022) far away from blockbuster cinema.
Koch Media
Cillian Murphy in Peaky Blinders
On television, where anti-heroes have been a staple of any major drama since The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, Murphy held his own as a leading man for six seasons. With gang leader Thomas Shelby, he has created his own Walter White. With each episode, we learn more dark facets of the character before he becomes the abyss Jim gazed into in 28 Days Later.
Oppenheimer also draws on the inscrutable contradictions that are united in Murphy’s suffering and at the same time sparkling gaze. With Batman Begins he had to – despite convincing screen test – Giving up the lead role. After four more films together (The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk), Nolan has finally found the perfect part to excel at.
Murphy can be seen in almost every scene of Oppenheimer, which was shot in just 57 (!) days. That demands a lot from an actor. No wonder Downey Jr. speaks of his colleague with admiration. Murphy ventured deep into the mind of the film. His profound performance is the best testament to this: he carries Oppenheimer’s mighty three hours entirely on his shoulders.
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2023-07-29 22:32:58
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