Cillian Murphy, who was born on May 25, 1976, in Douglas, Cork, failed his first-year law exams which led to his career in acting.
Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy, on Monday, won his first Oscar for Best Actor at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony. The Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, happened in Los Angeles today.
But do you know Murphy is a college dropout?
Well, If you don’t know, let’s us tell you Murphy, who was born on May 25, 1976, in Douglas, Cork, failed his first-year law exams which led to his career in acting.
Early life:
His parents were educators, and he grew up in Ballintemple, Cork, with his younger brother and two younger sisters. Despite academic success, Murphy occasionally faced trouble, leading him to prioritize artistic pursuits over sports.
Failed in college:
Murphy enrolled in law at University College Cork in 1996 but failed in first-year exam. He then realised it wasn't his passion, eventually finding interest in acting after witnessing a stage production of A Clockwork Orange by Corcadorca.
While talking about his failures, the actor once said, “There are kids who really suffer mentally and feel under such intense pressure because of the bottleneck of a points system we’ve developed.” He added, “I’m lucky in that I was never prone to depression or panic attacks, but that year was a dark year. I still have nightmares about it, even more so than walking on stage.”
“I just felt as if it was going to be the defining moment in my life and if I didn’t succeed in my exams, I would never succeed at anything,” he concluded.
Faced mental health issues after Peaky Blinders
Cillian Murphy, famous for his role as Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, mentioned in a 2019 interview with Esquire that fully immersing himself in a character can make his wife, artist Yvonne McGuinness, and their sons, Malachy (13) and Aran (12), feel a bit distant when he's filming.
He said, “When you're in the world of film and television acting, you don't just sit idle in a trailer, passing time with puzzles or other activities. It's a sudden shift from that calm to being fully engaged. If you start from a complete stop, it just doesn't click. I'm not constantly speaking like Tommy in my everyday life, but I have to get close. So, it's true – I'm not fully present during filming. And when we're shooting, I don't socialize; I head home, focus on my lines, and rest."
He added that playing Shelby's character, who bears the weight of haunting wartime experiences, is a challenging task for any actor. Murphy described this approach as a method to "temporarily escape reality."
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 "Meet Cillian Murphy")
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