Cillian Murphy: enigmatic, intense … and now he plays a real blinder in Oppenheimer

Having nailed it as a Batman baddie and a Brummie gangster, the actor is tipped for an Oscar for his raging turn in Oppenheimer

Miranda Collinge

Saturday 22 July 2023

It is possible that somewhere, in a parallel universe, Cillian Murphy was Batman. The 47-year-old Irish actor auditioned for the role when the British director Christopher Nolan was casting Batman Begins, the 2005 film that would become the first in the Dark Knight trilogy. In this universe, however, Murphy lost out to Christian Bale.