Cillian Murphy Quotes & Sayings

In terms of trying to improve as an actor, for me it's always important to return to the stage. After doing a piece of theater for a prolonged period, I can think I must have surely improved in some way as an actor - you must be fitter than you were prior to doing it. For me, theater is very, very important in keeping things fresh and dangerous. — Cillian Murphy

From a very young age I had an ambition to be a musician, and to do that professionally. That's what I pursued until I was about 20, playing in bands that were taken pretty seriously at that stage. — Cillian Murphy

I don't think they'd ever make a movie about Chuck Baker but I'd love to play Chuck Baker. — Cillian Murphy

I come from a long line of teachers. Not only did I not go into the family business; I had an aborted law career and I played in bands. 'Disco Pigs' was my first professional acting experience. — Cillian Murphy

And, for any performer, to be able to go deep into character is fantastic. In film you only get to do that if you're the leading character. But in television you get 18 hours to really test the audience and take them to the edge of how far they will go with this character. I can step over this line and I love that. — Cillian Murphy

I suppose I tend to like slightly darker things - people have levelled that on me before and I accept that because in my opinion, if I mention the best movies or the best books, there's always something that's involving slightly darker element of out psyche. I like seeing people under pressure. I like seeing what happens to people when they're under pressure. — Cillian Murphy

I suppose I've always been attracted to this sort of outsider in general - in literature, in music, politics, whatever - and to the person that is able to be relentlessly themselves. I don't think that I have that quality, that strength of mind. — Cillian Murphy

I try not to think retrospectively. It's important, as an artist, to look forward, always. I do try to take work that involves some challenge. If you approach a piece of work and you're going, "Yeah, yeah, I can do that," then that's kind of a red flag. — Cillian Murphy

I feel very lucky to be making good work still. The confidence of youth, or that sort of competitiveness you get when you're 22 or 23, the impatience - that's probably been tempered. Hopefully I'm slightly better company. — Cillian Murphy

I'd probably have been wealthier if I had stayed with law, but pretty miserable doing it. — Cillian Murphy

My only two constants are to challenge myself and to try not to repeat myself. — Cillian Murphy

Politics is deliberately making things better for some people by deliberately making them worse for others. — Cillian Murphy

It's obvious that if you're going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they're in and use as little or as much as necessary. — Cillian Murphy

The boring people are the worst. I think it's obvious, I think people have always had phobias about flying for years even before 9/11 and everything like that. It just taps into that and it taps into who you are going to sit next to on the plane. — Cillian Murphy

I think there's such a thing, as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform. — Cillian Murphy

I've had the pleasure and the great luck to work with some incredible actors over the years and you have to observe and learn and take something from it and try and become better yourself. — Cillian Murphy

Then, at age 20, I discovered theater sort of by accident. Quite quickly, theater became more important to me than music. I began to realize that maybe my talents as a musician were quite limited, or had a ceiling to them, whereas acting seemed to sort of stretch before me. I got very passionate about it very quickly. — Cillian Murphy

I was obsessed with Batman as a kid. I did the film in part just to be near the Batmobile. But I also think [director] Christopher Nolan made a very fine, intelligent film. — Cillian Murphy

Two weeks ago we couldn't pronounce your name, but you were in the lead in a film that made millions, so we're sending you all these scripts. — Cillian Murphy

There's a lot of comedy in Intermission but it's got this depth. It's not comedy for comedy's sake - it's informed by something else. I like stuff like that. — Cillian Murphy

And once you're unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you're unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary — Cillian Murphy

But television affords you, what you just described, to - over the course of 18 hours, now that we're doing a third season - tell the story of this man. You're not under any obligation, really, to do massive expositional stuff at the beginning. You're at liberty to say, "Come with us on this journey," and, gradually, you become aware of what his motivations are, what drives him, what his weaknesses are, what his strengths are. That's what I think's sucking people into these worlds, because it is kind of like a novel, you just go really, really deep. — Cillian Murphy

I've always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I've talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I'll have more butterflies. — Cillian Murphy

I take my hat off to the ladies. The amount of grooming-plucking and shaving and all the other things men never have to do. I went down and spent time with transvestites in London in the clubs and all that. Got an insight to that world, and it's a mad world, but they are very warm and very open people. It was a great experience. — Cillian Murphy

It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable. — Cillian Murphy

I don't have a burning passion to live in America per se but I would certainly like to work there. — Cillian Murphy

It's always nice to be challenged. — Cillian Murphy

I hope that I have gained some wisdom, but I don't know. I have kids, and that certainly puts things into perspective. I think I'm a more patient person. I hope I'm a more patient person. I'm a little more relaxed about the peripheral side of this business, which I used to find very confusing and alarming. — Cillian Murphy

I like being at home with my music and my books. I've done all the partying, I've done enough partying for four or five people as a young fella. But now I like the quiet life. — Cillian Murphy

All I've tried to do as an actor is follow the good writing. That's been my main drive. It's not always possible, so when you do come upon it, like when I came upon this, you realize pretty quickly this is something you need to be involved with. — Cillian Murphy

If you behave like a celebrity, then people will treat you like a celebrity, and if you don't, they won't. There's not much to write about me in the tabloids. — Cillian Murphy

I always think it's a sign of a truly gifted director when they can move seamlessly between genres. — Cillian Murphy

Sociopath is a word that has sort of become shorthand for psychopath and there's a distinct difference, it's interesting if you look it up. Sociopath if you look at the medical definition, the profile of a sociopath is that they are supremely intelligent people that are also pathological liars, they have no moral structure and there is one more, they have no compassion or empathy for other people. — Cillian Murphy

I think audiences are a lot more intelligent than what we give them credit for and understand that an actor is playing a role and that doesn't mean he can't play different types of roles. — Cillian Murphy

You need to be as clean of a slate as you can be, as an actor. You have to try to be open to every experience. — Cillian Murphy

I'd love to work in America, some of my favourite films come from America. — Cillian Murphy

I'm pretty adamant to do an American accent because you get it immediately. — Cillian Murphy

Every Irish person of my generation and earlier, we were raised Catholic and we'd have to learn it in school, we'd to learn the catechism by rote. — Cillian Murphy

I like the little bit of distance that London affords me and I like living in a world capital. I like having the culture at my fingertips. — Cillian Murphy

That's what acting is about, Funny wigs and voices, that's what we do. — Cillian Murphy

I enjoy all aspects of it, I don't have a preference for any medium. I think each of them has its attractions and I would hope they each inform the other in some way. — Cillian Murphy

At the moment I'm doing this space movie, so I'm obsessed with physics and space travel. I know three months down the line it's gone. Then I'll be able to superficially say stuff about space. — Cillian Murphy

What we do as actors is we go through phases where you superficially learn all this information. — Cillian Murphy

The best roles you have to fight for. You have to really want to do it and you have to go after it. — Cillian Murphy

I don't care if people perceive me as always selling out because I'm doing a studio picture. For me, the whole thing is you should be diverse in your choices; that's the beauty of being an actor, you should be able to do that. — Cillian Murphy

Then I wanted the character to be feminine as opposed to effeminate. Because it's easy to be camp or queen. Anyone can do that. What's difficult is to play feminine. — Cillian Murphy

I don't know if anyone will ever sit beside me on a plane again. — Cillian Murphy

I will always love film, the romance of film, sitting in the darkened room with strangers and watching a story for two hours - that will always remain and never be eroded by television. — Cillian Murphy

Having started out in theatre, I feel an impulse to do it as much as I can. — Cillian Murphy

My wife can see always how a part affects me personally because she has to live with it. — Cillian Murphy

I never make a distinction between doing a film in Hollywood or doing a film independently. It's just the story. It's always the story for me. The constants are that it should challenge me and I shouldn't repeat myself. And the story should always be a story worth telling. — Cillian Murphy

I think it's necessary to keep moving forward. I've always said that nostalgia is death, really for anyone creative. — Cillian Murphy

I think if you play characters, it's very important not to ever tag them with any sort of disorder, or diagnose them, or whatever. You have to normalize the behavior to get inside the character. — Cillian Murphy

I personally think if something's not a challenge there's no point doing it because you're not gonna learn much. — Cillian Murphy