Cillian Murphy on following Oppenheimer with Irish drama, and what his Oscar win means
Actor produced and stars in Irish historical drama Small Things Like These. He hopes Oscar win helps him tell stories with a point of view
Cillian Murphy did not read Small Things Like These looking for a film to do. He was simply a fan of the author, Claire Keegan.
Her story, nominated for the Booker Prize, was a work of historical fiction about the Magdalene laundries in Ireland and an ordinary man with repressed trauma who cannot force himself to look away over Christmas in 1985.
The beauty of the prose and complexities of the themes lingered in Murphy’s mind. The Irish actor had also been thinking about starting his own production company. Miraculously, the rights were available.
As a nod to the film, which opened in North American cinemas on November 8, Murphy and his producing partner, Alan Moloney, named their company Big Things Films.
“We were like, if you call it Small Things Films, it would show a real lack of ambition,” Murphy said with a little laugh. “We thought better call it Big Things Films.”
Small Things Like These was made after Oppenheimer but before Murphy won the best actor Oscar for his role in the film about the father of America’s atomic bomb – which he is still processing. Work is keeping him busy, though.
