The two movies that won Cillian Murphy an Oscar: “Connect with and find the truth”
It was only a matter of time before Cillian Murphy won an Oscar.
The actor has been impressing critics since he arrived on the scene in the early 2000s, but with his leading role in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, he finally took home a coveted Academy Award.
Playing the father of the atomic bomb, J Robert Oppenheimer, Murphy received widespread praise, with the movie battling it out with Barbie to become the biggest movie of 2023. While Greta Gerwig’s Mattel epic came out on top at the box office, Oppenheimer was the critical triumph, winning six other Oscars, including ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Picture’.
Murphy gave a career-defining performance as Oppenheimer, although he has delivered no shortage of terrific performances in the past, from 28 Days Later to Peaky Blinders, which have allowed him to become an Academy Award-worthy star. Not only did a career of impressive roles lead to his inevitable Oscar win, but two vital filmic influences also shaped his approach to his performance.
Talking to The Independent, Murphy revealed the two epic movies he was instructed to watch by Nolan in preparation for his portrayal of Oppenheimer, stating that he looked to “connect with and find the truth” within his multifaceted character.
His first frame of reference was Lawrence of Arabia. The classic David Lean film saw Peter O’Toole give an iconic performance as the titular character, who struggles with the moral implications of his actions as a British Army officer during World War I. It’s no surprise that this movie influenced Murphy’s approach to Nolan’s film, which similarly explored moral and ethical dilemmas in relation to violence and war.
Murphy revealed that the movie was helpful “in terms of the scale and the life-story aspect”.
While Oppenheimer clocks in at 180 minutes, Lawrence of Arabia is 222 minutes, yet the extensive narrative hardly drags. With every scene, O’Toole manages to captivate audiences, and this is something that Murphy looked to when embodying the complex role of the theoretical physicist.
Elsewhere, he also watched another movie that explored the life of a character considered a complex genius – Amadeus. Directed by Miloš Forman, the 1984 movie chronicled the rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and another Italian composer, Antonio Salieri. Not only is it a tale of epic proportions (coming in at 161 minutes), but the rivalry between the characters inspired the tensions between Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downey Jr.
Murphy highlighted the “competitive relationship” between the characters as a vital influence on the relationship between he and Downey Jr’s characters, and evidently, looking at Forman’s film helped them both, because the latter also walked away with a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ Oscar.
Oppenheimer was not the first collaboration between Nolan and Murphy. They first worked together on 2005’s Batman Begins before reuniting for the rest of the Dark Knight trilogy, as well as Inception and Dunkirk. However, with their most recent partnership, it seems as though years of collaboration and trusting each other paid off. Paired with Nolan’s essential watchlist, Murphy was able to achieve the ultimate sign of Hollywood success, sweeping awards season with his complex portrait of a controversial man.
