Top 116 Quotes & Sayings by Cillian Murphy

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Irish actor Cillian Murphy.

Last updated on September 17, 2024.

Cillian Murphy is an Irish actor. He was the lead singer, guitarist, and lyricist of the rock band The Sons of Mr. Green Genes. He turned down a record deal in the late 1990s and began acting on stage and in short and independent films. His first notable film credits include Jim in the zombie horror 28 Days Later (2002), the dark comedy Intermission (2003), and the action thriller Red Eye (2005). He played a transgender Irish woman in the comedy-drama Breakfast on Pluto (2005), which earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.

Irish - Actor | Born: March 13, 1974

Source: Wikipedia

There's a lot of comedy in Intermission but it's got this depth. It's not comedy for comedy's sake - it's informed by something else. I like stuff like that.

Cillian Murphy

Nearly everyone says New York is their number one city in the world, don't they? It certainly is mine. But I feel like the ship sailed for me in terms of living in New York because I think you need to live there when you're in your 20s - when you can be poor and energetic and just don't care.

Cillian Murphy

It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable.

Cillian Murphy

Geoff Dyer is an abundantly talented writer.

Cillian Murphy

My wife can see always how a part affects me personally because she has to live with it.

Cillian Murphy

42 is a really boring age, isn't it?

Cillian Murphy

I enjoy all aspects of it, I don't have a preference for any medium. I think each of them has its attractions and I would hope they each inform the other in some way.

Cillian Murphy

It's obvious that if you're going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they're in and use as little or as much as necessary.

Cillian Murphy

I would not rule out a musical. What I will categorically say is that I will not be in a 'Peaky Blinders' musical.

Cillian Murphy

I'd love to work in America, some of my favourite films come from America.

Cillian Murphy

If someone asks a stupid question, you can only give a stupid answer or appear arrogant.

Cillian Murphy

I don't think they'd ever make a movie about Chuck Baker but I'd love to play Chuck Baker.

Cillian Murphy

I don't have a burning passion to live in America per se but I would certainly like to work there.

Cillian Murphy

I've written my own music, and I play guitar.

Cillian Murphy

'She's a Mystery to Me' was released in 1987, when I was 11 or something, and I absolutely adored the song. This song was written by Bono and The Edge, and the story goes that Bono woke up with the tune in his head, then thought that the only voice who could sing this song is Roy Orbison.

Cillian Murphy

I had a really good time in my 20s and 30s.

Cillian Murphy

I enjoy any chance to get in front of a microphone in a role. I'll do it.

Cillian Murphy

What we do as actors is we go through phases where you superficially learn all this information.

Cillian Murphy

A director, I forget who, told me that it takes 30 years to make an actor. And I believe that. You have to learn your craft, learn your trade - and also you have to live a life and experience things.

Cillian Murphy

I've always been an actor who works in every medium - I've worked in theater and film and television - I've never seen any difference between the three.

Cillian Murphy

It's embarrassing sometimes, the way actors or musicians sometimes get made untouchable.

Cillian Murphy

My whole career has been completely random and haphazard.

Cillian Murphy

The color grading in 'Peaky' is a huge, huge element of the show's distinctive style, you know?

Cillian Murphy

Having started out in theatre, I feel an impulse to do it as much as I can.

Cillian Murphy

I've said this before: myself and Tommy Shelby, he's the most unlike-me character I have ever played.

Cillian Murphy

At the moment I'm doing this space movie, so I'm obsessed with physics and space travel. I know three months down the line it's gone. Then I'll be able to superficially say stuff about space.

Cillian Murphy

For me, it's about being at home and living a life. Taking the dog for a walk, doing the shopping, emptying the dishwasher, going for a run.

Cillian Murphy

I know I am old-fashioned, but I don't want to bring out a fashion line, I don't want to bring out an album. I just want to do the work as best as I can, and if that effects change for somebody, then that is great. I don't want to change the world.

Cillian Murphy

The best roles you have to fight for. You have to really want to do it and you have to go after it.

Cillian Murphy

I don't do karaoke. You know how some people don't like massages? They don't like massages; I don't like karaoke.

Cillian Murphy

That time, making 'Disco Pigs,' was kind of the most important period of my life. The people I met there remain my closest friends.

Cillian Murphy

I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything - fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself - and then you kind of go, 'Actually, this voting thing is amazing,' because you have a chance to change it, right?

Cillian Murphy

I loved living in London in my 20s and 30s, but after a while, you kind of go, 'Right, is this it? Is this it for the rest of my days? Or is there some other possibility?'

Cillian Murphy

Men and women are custodians of this society, and we both decide what's going to happen for our future. I feel that very, very strongly.

Cillian Murphy

After kids, the desire to improve as an actor remains, but time becomes hugely important. I want to do good work and do it well but then be at home. I love hanging out with my children, seeing how they behave, and stealing ideas off them. You can't do that if you're in a hotel, on a plane, or a film set. It's not real life.

Cillian Murphy

Patience is something that, as a young man, I didn't have - when waiting for parts to arrive or waiting for people to behave as I wanted them to.

Cillian Murphy

Then I wanted the character to be feminine as opposed to effeminate. Because it's easy to be camp or queen. Anyone can do that. What's difficult is to play feminine.

Cillian Murphy

It's only an advantage as an actor - looking younger than you are. If you can maintain it.

Cillian Murphy

I think if you play characters, it's very important not to ever tag them with any sort of disorder, or diagnose them, or whatever. You have to normalize the behavior to get inside the character.

Cillian Murphy

You know, I'm a skinny Irish guy.

Cillian Murphy

I don't consider myself a shy person necessarily, but there's something about getting under the skin of a character and allowing you an abandon or a sense of courage that you would never have in your own life.

Cillian Murphy

I think it's necessary to keep moving forward. I've always said that nostalgia is death, really for anyone creative.

Cillian Murphy

If you behave like a celebrity, then people will treat you like a celebrity, and if you don't, they won't. There's not much to write about me in the tabloids.

Cillian Murphy

I will always love film, the romance of film, sitting in the darkened room with strangers and watching a story for two hours - that will always remain and never be eroded by television.

Cillian Murphy

Sociopath is a word that has sort of become shorthand for psychopath and there's a distinct difference, it's interesting if you look it up. Sociopath if you look at the medical definition, the profile of a sociopath is that they are supremely intelligent people that are also pathological liars, they have no moral structure and there is one more, they have no compassion or empathy for other people.

Cillian Murphy

I take my hat off to the ladies. The amount of grooming-plucking and shaving and all the other things men never have to do. I went down and spent time with transvestites in London in the clubs and all that. Got an insight to that world, and it's a mad world, but they are very warm and very open people. It was a great experience.

Cillian Murphy

It's always nice to be challenged.

Cillian Murphy

I'm not interested in a good man's life. I'm interested in contradiction.

Cillian Murphy

I suppose I tend to like slightly darker things - people have levelled that on me before and I accept that because in my opinion, if I mention the best movies or the best books, there's always something that's involving slightly darker element of out psyche. I like seeing people under pressure. I like seeing what happens to people when they're under pressure.

Cillian Murphy

I personally think if something's not a challenge there's no point doing it because you're not gonna learn much.

Cillian Murphy

And once you're unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you're unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary

Cillian Murphy

I try not to think retrospectively. It's important, as an artist, to look forward, always. I do try to take work that involves some challenge. If you approach a piece of work and you're going, "Yeah, yeah, I can do that," then that's kind of a red flag.

Cillian Murphy

You need to be as clean of a slate as you can be, as an actor. You have to try to be open to every experience.

Cillian Murphy

I'm terrible. I'm the wrong person to talk to, I really don't know a thing.

Cillian Murphy

I like being at home with my music and my books. I’ve done all the partying, I’ve done enough partying for four or five people as a young fella. But now I like the quiet life.

Cillian Murphy

I don't know if anyone will ever sit beside me on a plane again.

Cillian Murphy

I'd probably have been wealthier if I had stayed with law, but pretty miserable doing it.

Cillian Murphy

My only two constants are to challenge myself and to try not to repeat myself.

Cillian Murphy

For me, drama is conflict.

Cillian Murphy

I’ve never done a film for the money

Cillian Murphy