Cillian Murphy (L); Christopher Nolan.Photo: Getty (2)
Cillian Murphyis overjoyed to have booked his biggest role yet.
The 46-year-old Irish actor checks off a major career-milestone as the real-life titular physicist inChristopher Nolan’s upcoming biographical epicOppenheimer, about the Manhattan Project mastermind who helped develop the atomic bomb.
While it’s his first time leading a Nolan-directed flick, Murphy has worked with the filmmaker, 52, several times before, includingInception,Dunkirkand Nolan’sBatmanfilms.
“Ihave always said publiclyand privately, to Chris, that if I’m available and you want me to be in a movie, I’m there. I don’t really care about the size of the part,” Murphy told theAssociated Pressin an interview published Wednesday.
“But deep down, secretly, I was desperate to play a lead for him,” the actor added.
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Cillian Murphy inOppenheimer(2023).Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
Nolan, Murphy told the AP, is “so understated and self-deprecating and, in his very English manner, just said, ‘Listen, I’ve written this script, it’s about Oppenheimer. I’d like you to be my Oppenheimer.’ "
“It was a great day,” said thePeaky Blindersstar.
According to Murphy, he and Nolan have a “long-standing understanding and trust and shorthand and respect,“he told the AP, adding, “It felt like the right time to take on a bigger responsibility. And it just so happened that it was a (expletive) huge one.”
The actor admitted he was a bit intimidated going in, viewing the role of the real-life physicist as “a huge responsibility,” considering Oppenheimer “was complicated and contradictory and so iconic” — but Nolan but him at ease.
“You know you’rewith one of the great directors of all time,” he said. “I felt confident going into it with Chris. He’s had a profound impact on my life, creatively and professionally. He’s offered me very interesting roles over and I’ve found all of them really challenging. And I just love being on his sets.”
Matt Damonstars as General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, alongsideRobert Downey Jr.as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
OscarnomineeFlorence Pughappears as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock in the thriller, which explores the paradox of “an enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it,” Universal said in a release.
Nolan toldTotal Filmin December 2022 that he’s “thrilled with what [his] team has been able to achieve” withOppenheimerwhich, even aside from the special effects, is “a story of immense scope and scale.”
“And one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever taken onin terms of the scale of it, and in terms of encountering the breadth of Oppenheimer’s story,” the director said. “There were big, logistical challenges, big practical challenges.”
Oppenheimeris in theaters July 21.
source: people.com
