Cillian Murphy: I moved back to Ireland because my kids had very posh English accents
Cillian Murphy: 'We wanted the kids to be Irish'
Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy has joked that he moved to Dublin from London in 2015 as his sons were developing “very posh English accents”.
Murphy, who is from Cork, told the Armchair Expert podcast that it was the right time for him to move back to Ireland with his family.
"We were in London for 14 years, both our kids were born there. We only came back to Dublin in 2015,” he said.
“It's kind of an Irish story, you know, to move away, do your thing and then come home. That seems to be a common narrative for Irish people. We wanted the kids to be Irish, and they were sort of at that age where they were preteens and they had very posh English accents and I wasn’t appreciating that too much. Our parents are a certain age and it was just a nice time to come home.”
Known for being extremely private, Murphy also offered an insight into his life at home with his family, noting that his sons are almost taller than him now. “It wouldn't be that hard though in fairness,” he adds.
“They have the same age gap that me and my brother have so it's nice to see them just being brothers and being pals. They're 16 and 14. You speak to them and you exchange preferences and opinions and talk to them about music and movies and things and they tell you things that you might never have known about and that's really a nice development.”
He said growing up his children "definitely kicked the shit out of each other quite often” but he said they are "great pals” now. He said he doesn’t want to influence them to go in any direction, such as music or acting, in their lives but that he wants them to be happy.
“This is such a cliche, but I just want them to be happy, confident kids. That's all. And to know themselves. I think that's the most important thing and they're heading that way. They're good boys. But I try not to project my stuff onto them. I try not to do that. It's impossible not to do it entirely, but just let them find their own way.”
He also opened up about his parents and how their careers as teachers turned him off school when he was young.
“My mom's a French teacher, dad's an Irish teacher and a maths teacher, some aunts and uncles are teachers. So I knew 100% that's one thing I wasn't going to do,” he said.
"When I was a little kid and then as a teenager, I acted out - not in a really dangerous way or anything. I was just a bit of a messer and just causing trouble. I'd go to school and I enjoyed school, but then I would come home and my parents would give me extra lessons at home. I got all the education. It was very well-meaning but probably too much.”
Instead, he turned his talents toward music. Murphy and his fellow bandmates famously turned down a record deal that was offered to The Sons of Mr. Green Genes in the late 1990s and he has revealed it was actually his parents who prevented it. Looking back, he said it was the right decision.
“We actually get offered a record deal and turned it down - or our parents turned it down on our behalf,” he said.
“My brother was still in school. I was 18 and he was 16, the idea of losing two of us was just too outrageous and horrifying for them so it didn't happen and then everything just kind of fell apart. In retrospect , the music industry is just terrible. Unless you're super successful it's really hard to make a living. We’d have crashed and burned pretty quickly in that industry.”
Murphy found global fame as Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, the final season of which recently aired on the BBC. He said the six-season show was “like being in a really violent boarding school’.
“It's a unique thing to get old with the character, to see yourself get old on screen... It has been a real gift,” he added.
He spoke of his love of Ireland and also revealed his appreciation for some Cork classics: Beamish and Murphy’s stout.
“Beamish is high quality stuff. Murphy's is also good stout, also from Cork. Guinness is kind of the ‘king’ of stouts but those two are also pretty tasty.” When describing Cork, he was forced to admit he doesn’t know the city’s population (it’s around 210,000, in case you were wondering).
“I'm from Cork and if anyone hears this, they will go ‘I cannot believe he doesn't know the population of Cork’.
The star of Christopher Nolan's upcoming Oppenheimer said he loves the “contradiction” of Ireland, pointing out the high vaccine uptake during the pandemic and how it compared to our rebellious past as a colony.
“Ireland has a 93% vaccination uptake, we are so obedient and good and responsible. It's very interesting. But then we're a very forward-looking society and very socially liberal for a country that was so repressed even 30 years ago and was controlled so much by the church. There's been massive, massive progress even in the last 10 years. Ireland is a real contradiction of a country and I kind of love it for that.”
