The Irish actor Cillian Murphy with a magnetic and haunting face garners fans all over the planet, however, he chooses a life far from the flashes and close to his passions
“I like acting but ultimately it's just about dressing up and doing voices. I take it seriously and do the best I can, but going home and being with my family is what's really worth it," says Cillian Murphy, the actor who plays Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders, the series that became an event and transcended borders. And we will have to believe him because what he says, he does. He turned down offers to settle in Hollywood and prefers to live with his family in Ireland.
He grants few interviews and if he accepts them, it is on the condition that they only talk about his work. He does not want, he does not want or care to be famous. He might choose a life designed by marketers where profits are measured rather than stories told, but he works only on projects that interest him. He is not seen on red carpets, in fashion productions, or in advertising campaigns. He makes no big claims and vehemently dismisses anything that would make him a superstar.
Cillian Murphy was born on May 25, 1976, in Douglas, a town in County Cork in Ireland. “I am very proud to be Irish,” he once said, “It is a country of storytellers. It has traditions of good art, good writers, good actors."
Cillian Murphy grew up in a home of teachers. His father was an official in the Ministry of Education and his mother was a French teacher. Like most Irish boys he went to a Catholic school. He did not stand out for his good behavior but he was not a problematic student either, in fact, he surprised everyone when he wrote his first songs at the age of ten.
It was in high school that he discovered that he liked acting, however, as he dreamed of being a rock musician he formed the band The Sons of Mr. Greengenes. A label became interested in his songs and offered a five-album deal, but the deal fell through. Mama Murphy objected because her son was younger and Cillian did not accept either. His reason was not the very poor payment offered but the demand for the delivery of the absolute right of his creations. The teenager said “Thank you but no” and thus he began to hint at the artist who owned his destiny which he would become.
When he finished high school, his parents thought he would be a teacher, but Cillian liked to learn but not teach. And as in Ireland the old saying says that "you will be what you should be if you don't be a lawyer" could also be applied, he enrolled in Law at the University of Cork. It was 1996 and it was a key year in his life. First, because he was rejected in all the Bar exams, second because he met Yvonne McGuinness, the plastic artist who would become his wife and mother of his children Malachy and Aran, and third because after seeing the performance of the play The Orange Mechanic of the Corcadora theater company, she decided that acting was her thing.
He signed up for the tests and ended up as the lead in 'Disco Pigs', the Enda Walsh play that would become a hit and five years later would give him his first film role. “To get a role like this with no training or experience and it becomes a massive hit was incredibly lucky,” Murphy said in an interview with the magazine.
