For the better part of the last decade, we’ve come to know Cillian Murphy as Thomas Shelby: leader of the Peaky Blinders gang.
But there’s a lot more to the Irish-born actor than you might realize. He is a super interesting person, which is unsurprising.
See for yourself and check out these 10+ cool facts about Peaky Blinders star, Cillian Murphy!
Cillian lives an incredibly private life.
“I get the bus, I get the tube, I go to the shop and get the milk and do normal things . I would hate it if that became impossible. As an actor, you’re supposed to be playing real people so it seems essential to live like a normal person.”
He has a hard time ‘switching-off’ from being Thomas Shelby.
“If you talk to my wife about how I am during different films, she says she can see a marked difference.”
Cillian goes on to say, “I’m sure I’ve been an [expletive]. It’s a difficult thing living with an actor.”
Cillian is Irish-born and currently lives in Dublin.
A big factor in Cillian deciding to make his home in Dublin has to do with privacy.
He claims that one of the things he enjoys most about the Irish countryside is that, “People leave me alone.”
He’s incredibly selective with his choice of roles.
“The only thing I’ve tried to stick to, and I’ve repeated it ad nauseum , is to follow the good writing.” Murphy says he has no interest in complicating the lives of his family:
“I’ve got young kids,” the actor said. “You don’t really want to uproot the family for a year.”
The phonetic pronunciation of his name is “Kill-e-an”.
I definitely had that wrong! The ‘C’ is pronounced like a hard ‘K’ – I bet that got annoying having to constantly correct people as a child.
I promise to never mispronounce your name again, Cillian!
Cillian used to play guitar in a band called Sons of Mr Greengenes.
“I’m very glad in retrospect that we didn’t sign because you kind of sign away your life to a label and the whole of your music,” Cillian said during an interview with The Evening Herald.
He has mixed feelings about Tommy’s haircut on *Peaky Blinders*.
“I’ve gotten more tolerant of the haircut over the years. And bizarrely, it’s become a desirable cut amongst the fashionistas, which is staggering to me. It’s one more sign of how the show has infiltrated the mainstream culture.”
Cillian auditioned for the role of Batman in *Batman Begins*.
As we all know, unfortunately for Cillian he lost out on the part to Christian Bale .
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However, director Christopher Nolan liked him so much, that he decided to cast him as Jonathan Crane. The Scarecrow.
He’s a huge fan of *Doctor Who*.
Cillian supposedly watched the famed sci-fi series as a child.
He doesn’t go as far as to mention who his favorite Doctor was, but if I was a betting man I would have to say…David Bradley?
Cillian’s American accent is so good that people used to think he was the real deal.
While he was auditioning to be cast in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins , Cillian’s accent was so spot-on that he apparently fooled the entire casting team.
No one had any idea he was actually Irish.
Cillian was the first actor to play the same DC villain in three separate films.
Cillian played Jonathan Crane, The Scarecrow. He appeared in all three films in Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.
I always thought they missed a huge opportunity when they chose to make Ra’s al-Ghul the “big bad” and not Crane in Batman Begins .
He studied to be a lawyer but ended up failing his final exams.
Cillian recalls “I’d probably have been wealthier if I had stayed with law, but pretty miserable doing it.”
Wealthier than starring in your own TV show for the last 7-plus years? I don’t think so.
One of Cillian’s all-time favorite movies was *TRON*.
It’s actually the reason that Cillian agreed to do a cameo in the 2010 remake/reboot TRON: Legacy .
It’s pretty cool to think that Cillian was able to fulfill a childhood dream in such a meta fashion.
Cillian is a polyglot.
A polyglot is someone who can speak at least 3 different languages fluently. Cillian can speak English, French, Gaelic, and Irish.
In case you were wondering: yes, Gaelic and Irish are two different languages.
Cillian’s kids haven’t seen a lot of their dad’s work.
“Most of what I do is highly unsuitable for them. They’re suitably underwhelmed by my work. I’m trying to keep them in that state because it’s such a silly industry.”
