Irish actor Cillian Murphy, who has won acclaim for his dark, brooding roles and his piercing blue eyes, has been named best actor in a drama at the Golden Globes for his role in Oppenheimer.
Born in Cork in 1976, his breakthrough role came in 2002 with the Danny Boyle film 28 Days Later, playing a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagious, aggression-inducing virus has caused the breakdown of society.
He showed his darker side as a domestic terrorist in the 2005 thriller Red Eye, and also had turns in Breakfast On Pluto, the Irish war drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley and science fiction thriller Sunshine, which reunited him with Boyle.
He first collaborated with director Christopher Nolan in 2005, as Scarecrow in Batman Begins, a role he reprised in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. He also appeared in Nolan’s films Inception and Dunkirk but it is his work with Nolan on Oppenheimer, playing father of the atomic bomb, J Robert Oppenheimer, that has brought him the most critical acclaim.
The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer, written by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin.
The film chronicles his studies, his career, his direction of the Manhattan Project during World War II, and his eventual fall from grace after his 1954 security hearing.
Murphy was immediately touted as a potential Oscar winner for his performance as the conflicted theoretical physicist and he has said of the man he played: “We’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world now. We’re all living in the nuclear age that he created.”
Collecting his gong at the Golden Globes ceremony, he said: “I knew the first time I walked on a Chris Nolan set it was different.
“I could tell by the level of vigour, focus, the level of dedication and the complete lack of seating options for actors.”
He paid tribute to their collaboration of “20 years and six fecking pictures”, before thanking his co-stars for “carrying me and holding me through this movie”.
You're a #GoldenGlobes winner! Congrats on winning Best Male Actor – Motion Picture – Drama for your role in Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/Uk9elJsRO1
— Golden Globe Awards (@goldenglobes) January 8, 2024
He also paid tribute to his fellow nominees, which included Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan and All Of Us Strangers’ Andrew Scott, saying: “If you’re Irish or not, you’re all legends and I salute you.”
On the small screen Murphy won legions of fans for his performance as gangster Tommy Shelby in the BBC drama Peaky Blinders, which debuted in 2013.
He plays the leader of a Birmingham crime family in the aftermath of World War I.
Murphy is married to the artist Yvonne McGuinness and the couple share two children.