At the age of 20, Cillian Murphy walked up to the door of the Corcadorca Theatre Company in hometown Cork, Ireland, and knocked. He said he’d be interested in getting involved in any upcoming shows, and the man suggested he try out for a new play called “Disco Pigs,” about a pair of reckless teenagers. It was Murphy’s first audition, and he got the part.
The Enda Walsh play was a big success, moving to larger and larger theaters and eventually leading to a film adaptation in 2001 from director Kirsten Sheridan. That film caught the eye of filmmaker Danny Boyle, then looking to cast a fresh face for his post-apocalyptic thriller “28 Days Later.”
Decades later, Murphy is continuing to seek out bold projects with some of the best filmmakers working today. That includes Christopher Nolan, who first brought Murphy to supervillain stardom in “Batman Begins” and who directs the actor in the titular role in “Oppenheimer,” now in theaters. It’s their sixth collaboration, and Murphy’s biggest role yet, playing the complex physicist and “father of the atomic bomb” over a course of several years and a three-hour runtime. It’s one of Murphy’s finest performances, which is saying a lot.
There isn’t a genre or a medium the actor has shied away from over the years. And while some films might not always work as a whole, Murphy always shines. He’s also a true actor’s actor, one who understands every role is integral and is comfortable taking on supporting parts.
After five collaborations with Christopher Nolan, the filmmaker finally let Murphy take the lead.
Murphy portrays the rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist known as the creator of the atomic bomb.
Murphy ricochets through time, portraying Oppenheimer in his young adulthood as a fragile student, his glory heading The Manhattan Project and his later years where he’s fighting the government that once heralded him.
These three timelines are usually easy to distinguish from one another, but sometimes they flow together with no obvious way to differentiate.
Though Oppenheimer is a mass of contradictions — he can be controlled yet irrational, naïve yet arrogant — he always makes sense through Murphy’s interpretation.
He is particularly haunting playing Oppenheimer in his later years: Both physically and spiritually, he is a man fading away before your eyes.
