Baftas 2024: Cillian Murphy wins for ‘Best Leading Actor’
Cillian Murphy has won the Bafta for ‘Best Actor’ for his performance in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, beating out the likes of Paul Giamatti, Barry Keoghan and Bradley Cooper.
Taking to the stage, Murphy thanked Nolan for his marvellous adaptation of American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, which tells the story of the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. He also praised his fellow nominees, with Giamatti failing to secure the Bafta after his odds of winning the category dramatically rose shortly before the event.
Starring in Oppenheimer as part of an all-star cast that also includes Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt and Matt Damon, the movie dissects the life of Oppenheimer, probing his subconscious to determine how much of a heroic historical figure he should be portrayed as.
Cillian Murphy was quick to share the award with his longtime collaborator, Christopher Nolan. “The most dynamic, decent, kindest director-producer partnership in Hollywood, Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas,” were the first people Murphy thanked.
He went on to pay tribute to his “Oppenhomies” and said, “Thank you, Chris, for seeing something in me that I probably didn’t see in myself. For the wonderful script and for pushing me, and always demanding excellence.”
“I know it’s a cliche to say I’m in awe of you, but I genuinely am,” said Murphy to the room of British filmmaking talent. He was thrilled to work on the “Collossaly nutty, complex character, and he meant different things to different people. One man’s monster is another man’s hero, and that’s why we make movies. So we have a space to celebrate, interrogate and investigate that complexity. It’s a privilege to be a part of this community with you all.”
Speaking about the movie in Far Out’s full-length review, we said: “Re-creating The Trinity Test without the use of CGI is a cinematic marvel in its own right, but equally impressive is the intensity of each of cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s shots, beautifully capturing each pore of Murphy et al.’s face in glorious 70mm IMAX film. Even without the usual set pieces of The Dark Knight and Interstellar, Ludwig Göransson’s score can still shine in moments of drama, if not action”.
Continuing, we added: “Let’s face it, Nolan consistently delivers in whatever project he takes on; he knows his vision and style and creates a positive, intimate environment for his actors to provide their best work. But with Oppenheimer, he hasn’t just delivered an entertaining, thought-provoking movie as he had done with his previous efforts, but a thoroughly important one that informs even the most sheltered of us about the global situation we find ourselves in today”.
By winning the Bafta, Murphy joins a long list of historical winners, including the recent likes of Austin Butler, Will Smith and Anthony Hopkins.
Does Oppenheimer feature any CGI?
Remarkably, there is no CGI whatsoever in Oppenheimer, with the visionary filmmaker seeking different means to recreate the vast explosions used in the movie.
“Recreating the Trinity test without the use of computer graphics was a huge challenge to take on,” the director confirmed in an interview, explaining: “Andrew Jackson – my visual effects supervisor, I got him on board early on — was looking at how we could do a lot of the visual elements of the film practically, from representing quantum dynamics and quantum physics to the Trinity test itself … there were huge practical challenges”.
Oppenheimer helped to set the film industry alight in 2023, teaming up with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie to create the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon, which saw movie lovers returning to the cinema in their droves for the first significant time since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Check out the trailer for Oppenheimer below.
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