Cillian Murphy is known for a variety of roles, including Batman Begins and Inception, but he has managed to keep his personal life as private as it gets.
The Peaky Blinders star does not want his personal affairs to be into the public sphere, and has made it a point to keep his marriage and family life on the down low. In interviews, he rarely talks about his wife of almost 20 years, Irish artist Yvonne McGuinness, and their two children, Malachy (17), and Aran (15), preferring to focus on his work engagements instead.
Now that he has left the role of Tommy Shelby behind after six seasons of the Birmingham gangster drama and Christopher Nolan's hotly-anticipated movie Oppenheimer — in which he plays the titular role — has wrapped, the Cork-born actor can recharge and spend time with his family in Ireland before committing to more projects.
Updated on April 4, 2023: Since finishing Peaky Blinders in 2022, Cillian Murphy has spent the last year working hard to balance family life and Hollywood. So far this year, the star was hired to provide his voice for the video game Peaky Blinders: The King's Ransom, as well as worked on three upcoming titles: Oppenheimer, 28 Months Later, and Kensuke's Kingdom.
Both McGuinness and Murphy work hard to shield their sons from any unwanted spotlight, so their two boys cannot be found on social media and tend to stay out of any interview converstaions Cillian has while working.
How Did Cillian Murphy Meet His Wife, Yvonne McGuinness?
Yvonne McGuinness has witnessed Murphy's career evolve, having been by his side from his early acting days. The two met in 1996 at one of the actor's jazz funk band shows — Murphy used to play guitar, sing, and write lyrics for The Sons of Mr. Green Genes and turned down a record deal at the time — and later tied the knot in 2004. The pair welcomed their two sons in 2005 and 2007.
Murphy started acting in the mid-1990s, making his stage debut in 1996. His breakthrough role on the big screen was in the zombie cult production 28 Days Later from director Danny Boyle.
The Irish star has never looked back since then, often collaborating with other big names in the industry. Notably, Christopher Nolan is among them: Murphy has appeared in The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk, and will be seen in the Oppenheimer movie this summer.
Despite his growing fame, he has always been elusive and reluctant to share details about his private life, his family above all.
"I didn't see myself as a personality. I see myself as an actor," he told The Irish Times in 2021.
"I think those are two distinct jobs. And my job is to portray other people. The less that people know about me the better I can portray other people. That seems glaringly obvious and logical to me."
Where Does Cillian Murphy And His Family Live?
Murphy and McGuinness moved to London in 2001 a few years before getting married. They reportedly lived in the English capital for over a decade and raised their sons in the city before deciding to move back to Ireland in 2015.
"We wanted the kids to be Irish," Murphy told Dax Shepard during an interview for the podcast series Armchair Expert in April 2022, quickly adding, "They were sort of at that age where they were pre-teens, they had very posh English accents, and I wasn't appreciating that too much, so we decided to come back."
He continued, "Parents are of a certain age, it was just a nice time to go home."
According to The Irish Mirror, Murphy and McGuinness bought a six-bedroom terraced house in Monkstown, a suburb in south Dublin. In June 2021, the actor explained he and his family moved back to their native Ireland "to be closer to family," admitting it was "the best thing [he and his family] did."
"The kids are of a certain age. I think if you live in a world capital – like New York or London or wherever – it's excellent and exciting and stimulating in your 20s and 30s," he told The Irish Times.
"Then there's a point where the things that were excellent and stimulating are now a bit sort of tedious and draining. You want something quieter and that's what we did."
An Inside Look At Cillian Murphy's Family Life
Murphy tries to spend as much time at home as possible, though his job may take him away from his family for extended periods of time.
Recently, he has opened up on how his family helped in keeping him grounded in between roles, especially when he has to go on a cleanse before taking on a new project.
"You need time to be alone and to get away. I reach out to my family and try to be close to them in these periods. I think that helps me a lot," the actor told GQ.
In a previous interview with the magazine, Murphy revealed he tries not to take on too many projects so that he can spend at least half the year with McGuinness and their children.
"That work-life-balance thing is hard," he said in 2019.
"I have an amazing wife and I couldn't do this without her and her understanding. But it is a struggle. I think it is for any dad whose work takes him away, which it generally does, and which consumes him, which my work does."
"I make sure that I try not to go from job to job to job, because that means you live in a bubble of set, hotel, set, hotel, plane, film festivals—which, to me, is not reality. So I just check out from that for six months a year."
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