Image sources (in order of posting): Patrick T. Fallon, AFP, Getty Images
Let's get this out of the way: yes, Barbenheimer happened in 2023, and we are now somehow nearing the end of 2024. It has been both a minute and an eon.
But while Oppenheimer might have exploded onto screens in 2023, it was in the calendar year of 2024 that Murphy took home that ultimate trophy, the Oscar for Best Actor, becoming the first Irish-born actor to do so. (Wicklow resident Daniel Day-Lewis was, regrettably, born in the UK.)
To be clear, I'm not trying to claim this is some kind of DEI victory. But it's a major win for Ireland, which has been on an incredible streak of pop culture prominence for a country of slightly over 5 million people. It's also a massive win for Murphy's native Cork -- the largest county and second largest city in Ireland. Corkonians all know in their hearts that Cork is superior to Dublin in any and all ways that matter, and Murphy has provided indisputable evidence that further proves this point. This is a victory that Dublin can never take away from us, and that's a beautiful thing.
And on the subject of beautiful, there is of course, Murphy's face. I've been a devotee since my middle school days, but it's only over the past few years that the wider masses seem to have copped on to what some of us have known for decades.
Hollywood covets beauty; it's hardly groundbreaking to say that A-list actors are, generally speaking, hotter than the average human being.
The thing that's quite unique about Murphy's heartthrob status is how distinctive and yet chameleonic his looks are. On one hand, pre-Oppenheimer, Murphy's most awarded film role was playing trans woman in Breakfast on Pluto (keep in mind this film came out in 2007, when conversations about who can and should be playing trans characters were in a much more nascent stage). On the other hand, his most iconic character is Peaky Blinders protagonist Tommy Shelby, a cutthroat gangster with a body count to rival James Bond. The most incredible thing about this contrast, though, is that there isn't some extreme physical transformation between these two roles -- there aren't hours of prosthetics or absurd gym regimens involved. It's all aura.
He is also, of course, not just a pretty face. Beyond being an incredible actor who occasionally moonlights as a radio DJ with impeccable taste for BBC Radio 6, one of his most endearing qualities is his eternally meme-worthy and deeply relatable loathing of dumb questions and nonsense (read: most press junkets). One day he's going to be the grumpiest old man ever and look an absolute silver fox while doing so. Every era of Cillian so far has been impeccable, but the best might still be yet to come.
While the slow burn popularity of Peaky Blinders has seen Cillian Murphy's public profile on the rise for years, it was 2023 that really saw him explode into the mainstream in a major way. However, it's 2024 that has demonstrated that Murphy's newfound elite A-list status is truly here to stay.
He launched his own production company, Big Things Films, and kicked off his producorial career with the critically acclaimed period drama Small Things Like These. He wrapped filming on the Peaky Blinders film, the star-studded final send-off for the iconic role of Tommy Shelby. And perhaps most impressively, in terms of demonstrating that he's taken up permanent residence in the public's imagination, Murphy dominated online conversation around a trailer he wasn't even in when the first trailer for 28 Years Later dropped earlier this month, the hotly anticipated continuation of the zombie franchise that helped launch Murphy's career.
It's been previously reported that Murphy will reprise the role of Jim, the protagonist of the original 28 Days Later. However, in the absence of plot details and not seeing other evidence of his character in the trailer, the wider internet (including some news outlets) started reporting that a zombie in the trailer with particularly prominent cheekbones must be Murphy. The consensus was so widespread that official sources felt the need to go on the record and clarify that the zombie was not Cillian Murphy, but a featured extra with somewhat Cillian Murphy-like cheekbones.
Imagine having a jawline so iconic the whole internet assumes that a zombie with good bone structure is you. That's a kind of power money can't buy.