Cillian Murphy learns about best actor Oscar nomination from parents' house in Cork
Cillian Murphy has been nominated for an Oscar for his leading role in Oppenheimer.
Actor Cillian Murphy has received an Oscar nomination for his role in Oppenheimer — and learned about the accolade while staying at his childhood home in Cork.
Murphy, 47, was nominated for his role as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s drama about the father of the atomic bomb. It is Murphy's first Oscar nomination.
He is currently in Cork and told US publication Variety he celebrated with a slice of his mam's sponge cake at his family home in a southside suburb.
“Thankfully, I live in a time zone that I don’t have to get up at 5am,” he said, referencing the early-morning announcement in the US. The nominations were revealed at 1.30pm Irish time.
“It was already organised for me. We’ve had a few days off and I’ve been at home, which has been very, very pleasant. I’m actually in my parents’ house in Cork city. I was with my parents and my wife today. So that was really nice.”
He added they celebrated the nomination with some homemade treats. “We had a cup of tea and a slice of cake. It was quite nice. My mom made a sponge cake. It was very tasty.”
Murphy won his first Golden Globe earlier this month for the role and has also been nominated for a Bafta. The Cork actor had been strongly tipped for a nomination and is one of the favourites to take home the best actor Oscar in March. If he wins, Murphy will be the first person born in Ireland to claim the best actor prize.
He faces competition in the category from Bradley Cooper in Maestro, Colman Domingo in Rustin, Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers, and Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction.
Murphy’s co-stars Emily Blunt and Robert Downey Jr are also nominated for supporting prizes, while Nolan has scored a best director nod and Oppenheimer is recognised in the best film category. Oppenheimer received 13 nods in total, leading the nominations, followed by Poor Things with 11.
The best picture nominees are American Fiction, Anatomy Of A Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers, Killers Of The Flower Moon, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things and The Zone Of Interest.
Downey Jr's fellow nominees for the best supporting actor Oscar are Sterling K Brown for American Fiction, Robert De Niro for Killers Of The Flower Moon, Ryan Gosling for Barbie and Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things, while Emily Blunt is joined in her category by Danielle Brooks for The Color Purple, America Ferrera for Barbie, Jodie Foster for Nyad and Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers.
Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal missed out on nominations for their roles in All of Us Strangers while Dublin actor Barry Keoghan was also snubbed for his role as Oliver Quick in the black comedy Saltburn, where he plays a working-class student drawn into the world of a rich aristocrat.
Last year Keoghan was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role as Dominic in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin.
What a day in @ElementPictures HQ. We are absolutely thrilled and so immensely proud of our POOR THINGS team, sending huge congratulations to all the nominees! @TheAcademy #Oscars #PoorThingsFilm pic.twitter.com/OYFiTzWvE3
— Element Pictures (@ElementPictures) January 23, 2024
Yorgos Lanthimos’s offbeat film Poor Things is produced by Dublin-based Element Pictures and picked up several nominations including best film, best actress for Emma Stone and cinematography. This is the third best picture nomination for Ed Guiney of Element Pictures.
"We are absolutely thrilled and so immensely proud of our Poor Things team," Element Pictures said on social media after learning of their nomination.
Greta Gerwig and her husband and co-writer Noah Baumbach have been nominated in the adapted screenplay category for box office juggernaut Barbie, which also received nominations for best supporting roles for Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera as well as a best film nod.
However Barbie star Margot Robbie was not nominated for her performance. The nominees for the best actress Oscar are Annette Bening for Nyad, Lily Gladstone for Killers Of The Flower Moon, Sandra Huller for Anatomy Of A Fall, Emma Stone for Poor Things, as well as Carey Mulligan for Maestro.
Last year, many Irish hopes were dashed as Banshees of Inisherin, which was nominated for nine awards including best picture, did not win in any category. However An Irish Goodbye accepted an Academy Award for best live-action short film while Dubliner Richard Baneham from the Avatar: The Way of Water creative team picked up an award for best visual effects, saying “go raibh míle maith agat” to the Academy for his second Oscar.
The 96th Oscars takes place on Sunday, March 10 in Los Angeles and will be hosted by US television host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
