Asked whether he enjoys doing interviews to promote a film, Cillian Murphy, star of the new film “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man,” replied, “I enjoy a considered chat about the themes and the work. That I enjoy. I think it’s the more condensed version of it, it’s very hard to soundbite something you’ve worked for years and years on. I guess I’m realizing, I guess I’m just quite a shy person. So that makes me maybe potentially a **** interviewee!”

Quite the contrary. When we met Murphy in his old London neighborhood, we found the Irish actor’s thoughtful and deliberate approach to an interview mirrors the way he tackles a role.

For someone who does not chase the spotlight, performances by this star of such films as “Inception,” “Dunkirk,” and “Oppenheimer” often command it.

“They say acting is like the shy man’s revenge,” he said.

Because you can be whomever you want to be? “I think so. I certainly feel very comfortable on stage, and very comfortable inhabiting somebody else’s shoes.”

For years those shoes have belonged to Tommy Shelby, the charismatic gangster who rules post-World War I Birmingham, England in “Peaky Blinders.” Starting in 2013 as a small show on the BBC, it developed a cult following, was picked up by Netflix, and ran for six seasons. Now the story continues in the movie “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man,” which pits Tommy Shelby against a new rival: his own son, played by Barry Keoghan.

Asked how he gets into a character like Shelby, Murphy said, “I did an awful lot of reading about Britain between the wars, about the effects of what we now know as PTSD. And then you kind of have to figure out the physicality, figure out the walk, figure out the voice, figure out the costume, figure out the mannerisms, figure out the energy of the character, all that stuff.”

“How about playing the same character for so many years?” I asked. “Is there ever a time you thought, I don’t want to be too associated with this guy?“

“Nah, I mean there’s this adage in show business like, don’t quit a hit, and I think that is correct,” Murphy replied. “If something’s working, audiences love it, the writing is good, you’re still enjoying it, don’t quit it, you know?”

He admits that he is drawn to particularly complicated, complex or tormented characters: “I think that’s where good art exists, generally. Certainly in the art that I enjoy, it’s never easy. It’s a little tricky. It’s not reductive, because human behavior is so weird. That’s the stuff that I like.”

Portraying J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s film mixed all of that. Murphy shed weight to become the wiry, brilliant theoretical physicist tormented by his own creation, the atomic bomb. A box office phenomenon, the film took in nearly a billion dollars, and earned Murphy the Oscar for best actor in 2024.

Does winning an Oscar take some pressure off? Or does it add pressure? “I don’t really know,” Murphy said. “You know, I made a couple of films after ‘Oppenheimer,’ made this little film called ‘Small Things Like These,’ and then I made a film called ‘Steve.’ I suppose if it helped get those films (that were very important to me) and those stories out into the world, if that helped, then I’ll take that, I’ll lean into that.”

Being an “Academy Award-winner,” he says, is “one of those kind of iconic things in our industry. You just feel very humbled to be in that club, I suppose. I don’t think about it very often!”

At a park in the North London neighborhood where he lived with his family for more than a decade, the movie star did not want to play that part. He tries to wear the “fame thing” lightly. “The less that people know about you, the more you can inhabit a character, you know?” he said. “And just portray that character as honestly and convincingly as possible. … And inevitably, that becomes a little bit eroded, I suppose, if you’re in more high-profile work, but you try and preserve it as best as you can.”

“How do you try to preserve it? Because you’re certainly doing high-profile work,” I said.

“I guess so, yeah. I don’t know, there’s a tension always,” he said.

He lives in Ireland with his wife, artist Yvonne McGuinness. The couple has two sons, now 18 and 20. “I like to run, walk the dog, meet my pals, go to the pub, you know, all the boring stuff!”

The 49-year-old tries to stay offline, but became the unwitting face of an internet meme – the epitome of looking “over it.” And we might’ve caught a flash of that ourselves after an admittedly awkward question: “Your eyes, your cheekbones, get a lot of comment,” I said, to which he rolled his eyes back.

“Well, I mean, what can I do with that?” Murphy said. “I don’t pay any attention to that, honestly. Just try and make the work, you know. and that’s not something you can control, is it?”

“But it works for you. They’re things that people remember that they talk about, that they write about?”

“Yeah, I guess, but again, it’s like I have no point of view really on that. It is just embarrassing.”

He focuses on what he can control: the craft. “You do take the work deadly seriously, and you promote the work because you want people to see it, and then you just go quiet,” he said.

Cillian Murphy guards that quiet between projects, much less interested, he says, in the bubble of stardom, than the pursuit of a good story.

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Cillian Murphy (Video)

To watch a trailer for “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man,” click on the video player below.

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Story produced by Mikaela Burfano. Editor: Carol Ross. 

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