Biography

Cillian Murphy (; born 25 May 1976) is an Irish actor. He began his career performing as a rock musician. After turning down a record deal, he began his acting career in theatre, and in short and independent films in the late 1990s. He appeared in the films 28 Days Later (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), Intermission (2003), Red Eye (2005) and Breakfast on Pluto (also 2005), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and won an Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actor. He played the character of Dr. Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) in the highly successful films of The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012). He starred in The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Sunshine (2007), The Edge of Love (2008), Inception (2010) and Peacock (also 2010). In 2011, Murphy won the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Actor and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for Misterman. He also became patron of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at the National University of Ireland Galway. He is closely associated with the work of Professor Pat Dolan, Director UCFRC and UNESCO Chair in Children, Youth and Civic Engagement. He was also in the films In Time (2011), Retreat (2011) and Red Lights (2012). Since 2013, Murphy has portrayed Thomas Shelby, the lead of the BBC gangster series Peaky Blinders, for which he has won two Best Actor - Drama Irish Film and Television Awards in 2017 and 2018 respectively. He was in the films Transcendence (2014), In the Heart of the Sea (2015), Anthropoid (2016) and Dunkirk (2017).