Apart from being known for his performance as The Scarecrow in Batman Begins (2005) and as Jackson Rippner in Red Eye (2005), Cillian Murphy was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance as Kitten, a transvestite in the film Breakfast on Pluto in 2005. His role as a 1920s Irish revolutionary in the film The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) won him a Palme d’Or.
Cillian Murphy was born on 25 May, 1976, in Douglas, Cork. His father works as a school inspector at the Irish Department of Education and his mother is a French teacher. Murphy started writing and performing songs at ten years old. He was brought up in Ballintemple – another suburb of Cork.
Before gaining global popularity, Murphy was a successful Irish theatre and film personality. Murphy’s first theatre performance was when he was in high school. However, he always wanted to be a rock star and worked towards that goal through his teens and early twenties. He joined a law college after high school, however soon discovered that law was not for him. His major role in theatre came with Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, a production by the Drama Society at University College Cork. However, it was Murphy’s performance in Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs that was the turning point in his career.
Between 1997 and 2003, Murphy starred in a number of independent films, short films, and in television mini-series both in Irish and English. After Disco Pigs, Murphy won roles in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Neil LaBaute’s The Shape of Things. 2001 marked the film version of Disco Pigs. His performance caught several the eye of several directors and roles started flowing in.
After two years in films, Murphy started gaining worldwide popularity for his roles in Batman Begins and Breakfast at Pluto. His other films include 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), The Edge of Love (2007), and Hippie Hippie Shake (2007).
Murphy married Yvonne McGuinness, his long-time girlfriend in 2004. Their son, Malachy, was born in 2005. Although Murphy gives interviews regarding his work, he prefers not to discuss his personal life with the press. He has been labelled, “a chameleonic performer, a character actor trapped in a leading man’s bone structure” in a BackStage feature.
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