At the peak of success at 46, the Irish actor Cillian Murphy refuses to be famous, has no social media, and hates red carpets.
The “Peaky Blinders” star was on the verge of not being an actor. The son of an education ministry official and a French teacher, Cillian Murphy was first a musician and then decided to pursue acting. His parents wanted him to choose an academic career and he tried to make them happy by trying law, but he quickly gave up.
He escapes fame and to avoid being the center of attention he chooses to live far from Hollywood. "The more boring you are in real life, the less people are interested in you," he once said. He leads a simple life with his longtime girlfriend and his children in Ireland, his home country.
“I see myself as an actor. And my job is to portray other people. The less people know about me, the better I can do my job. That seems patently obvious and logical to me,” said The Irish Times. Although he is a consecrated actor, Murphy forces himself to rest six months a year to reconcile his personal life with success.
Cillian lives away from the spotlight hates red carpets and gives almost no interviews. His philosophy of life is clear: “I just want to be decent and good. They are old values, but it seems that they are disappearing nowadays. Now it is normal to be a despot, a misogynist, a disgusting person. These views are being validated around the world. Not being flashy and not talking about yourself too much is what I try to hold on to."
After the premiere of the final season of "Peaky Blinders", available on Netflix, the Irishman is immersed in the filming of "Oppenheimer", the new film by Christopher Nolan, which has a budget of USD 100 million and where he is the star major.
The demands to play Thomas Shelby
Cillian Murphy admitted that he had to make several sacrifices to be able to play Thomas Shelby in "Peaky Blinders", one of the most successful series. Being part of this Irish gangster family was something quite hard for his star actor, who assured him that he had to change his lifestyle to be able to embody his famous character.
Although the Irish actor was one of the big bets, Steven Knight, creator, and showrunner of the series, had two points against the interpreter. To Knight he seemed too short and without the intimidating and imposing bearing that he required. But Murphy wanted the job and sent him a message where he said:. "Remember: I'm an actor."
On the advice of his trainer, the actor agreed to return to eating meat after 15 years of vegetarianism and underwent hard training to muscle his body and achieve the presence that Knight was looking for.
"I'm not a tough guy at all, so it was the toughest character I've ever played," he told the BBC of his work on the show, which came to an end this year after six successful seasons. "We did a lot of fighting, stunts, so I've been going to the gym more than ever in my entire life!" All of that takes time, and I hate it."
When Knight saw him again after his transformation, he found that Murphy's new demeanor made his 1.75m tall fade into the background.
In addition to preparing his body to be Birmingham's gangster boss, Murphy toned down his voice to try to sound more intimidating and obsessively practiced his accent. To get the perfect tone he would frequent local pubs, where he would record the regulars. ”We would go have some Guinness and everyone would sing Birmingham City songs and tell stories that I would record on my iPhone. And when he got home, he would track down each accent and try them out. He would leave messages for Steve by mimicking them so he would see how close he was.”
According to the time Thomas Shelby is a compulsive smoker, but he doesn't smoke. The ones he consumed were natural cigarettes that did not contain nicotine or cause addiction. They were stuffed with grass. He smoked more than 3,000 in the first two seasons, the actor revealed.
A star that escapes fame
"Peaky Blinders" was quite a success, but for Murphy, it became his worst nightmare.
Murphy is a star who avoids attracting attention, to the point that he doesn't pose for photos when fans recognize him on the street. In an interview with GQ magazine, the "Dunkirk" actor admitted that he hates selfies and instead would rather shake hands or stop to talk to his followers than take pictures.
He has also made it very clear that he is annoyed that "people take pictures of me on the sly." Unlike those colleagues who feel happier the more cameras gather around them, they make him uncomfortable. He doesn't have social media either. He does not have an account on Instagram or Twitter. In 2017, when asked about this, he quipped: "I'm too old for that now." He doesn't want to be famous.
To maintain a low-profile life with an unusual job, the actor made several decisions. He only gives interviews when he's on a project and works six months a year. He has developed strategies to deal with fame and to maintain a normal life. “I make sure I try not to go from one job to another because that means you live in a bubble in a bubble of the set, hotel, set, hotel, plane, film festivals, presentations And that, to me, is not the reality," he said. "So I withdraw from that for six months out of the year."
Unlike many of his film contemporaries, the 45-year-old actor has chosen to settle far, far away from Hollywood in a quiet corner of his native Ireland. After spending more than a decade living in London, Murphy moved to Dublin with his family in 2015. They live in a modest house in the suburb of Monkstow. “I don't miss London. Your head should have fewer people around."
Murphy and his wife Yvonne McGuinness met when the actor was in a rock band. It was in 1996 that the blue-eyed Cork native met Yvonne, an Irish visual artist, during one of her concerts. The couple married in Provence, France, in 2004, and have two children: Malachy and Aran. Although the interpreter avoided speaking publicly about his wife, Murphy once let his guard down to sympathize with McGuinness, acknowledging in an interview that it was "somewhat difficult to live with an actor."
A fan of Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Jeff Bridges, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Meryl Streep, the Irish actor avoids becoming someone he doesn't want to be. "It's such a dumb industry." Every day he continues to adhere to the five principles that govern his life: work with talented colleagues, keep a distance of 8,000 kilometers from Hollywood, commit to work, do theater,, and spend time with his affections.
