Cillian Murphy responds to first ever Oscar nomination for ‘Oppenheimer’

Cillian Murphy has shared his reaction to receiving his first ever Oscar nomination for his role in Oppenheimer. 

• READ MORE: Oscars 2024 nominations – see the full list 

It was announced earlier today (January 23) that Murphy was up for the Oscar for Best Actor alongside Bradley Cooper, Colman Domingo, Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Wright. It was one of 13 nominations Oppenheimer picked up, leading the pack ahead of Poor Things, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

Murphy told Deadline that when he found out about the nomination, he was at his parents’ house in Ireland and was “sitting around having tea” before “the phone started popping”.

“I feel really privileged and I feel really lucky to be in a film that’s connected with people in a way that it has critically and commercially,” he said. “To be in a film that people have seen three and four and five times and they come up to you and tell you that…”

When asked if he’s processed the enormity of an Oscar nomination and what he might have thought when he was starting out, he added: “I don’t think you would have believed it or seen it as a possibility or anything like that; I just wanted to make theatre and make good theater, and then you do a small part in a short film and then a small part in a film — we’ve talked about this really gradual process and I think that’s why I’m able to deal with it and able to enjoy it.

“I’m like 48 and I’ve seen a lot and been doing it for 28 years now, so I think I can understand how significant it is to me and how meaningful it is to me and to other people… You know, it’s been a long time in the business. I think as a youngster it just didn’t seem a possibility anything like this.”

On the subject of what he’d learned on the campaign trail, he said: “I feel really lucky to have been in rooms full of artists who I really genuinely admire and get to spend time and talk about it. It is a bit of a circus, but it’s there because people love the film and they care about the work and they care about cinema. I have to say I’m really enjoying it… It just felt really a lovely and secure place to be.”

He added: “I think you kind of need to open your heart a little bit and just go with it; it’s all positivity and that’s a good thing, I think we need positivity in the world right now.

“There’s too much cynicism in the world, I think, and we all recognize our place as actors and we all know where we stand in the sort of import of what we do for society, but I think it’s important to just avoid cynicism and embrace it.”

Murphy called the past few weeks a “fascinating experience to go through” and said it was “really stimulating to meet all these people that you would never get to meet — I mean, you’re standing in a queue and you’re chatting to Meryl Streep or somebody. It’s quite insane, and that may never happen again in my life and you gotta just enjoy that.”

Meanwhile, Robert Downey Jr. has claimed that the runaway success of Oppenheimer has become “a terrible tragedy” for its introverted director Christopher Nolan.

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