What's next for Cillian Murphy? The Oscar winner is already working on new projects

The Corkman recently set up a production company and is working on creating a film adaptation of a novel for Netflix, writes Esther McCarthy

Cillian Murphy accepts the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for 'Oppenheimer' onstage during the 96th Annual Academy Awards. Picture: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP

He’s celebrating a history-making Oscar victory — but in the coming weeks, Cillian Murphy returns to a film set and the acting career that is his passion.

Murphy will soon be back to work when cameras start rolling this spring on Steve, an adaptation of Max Porter’s bestselling novel Shy, which the actor will both produce and star in. Netflix has already snapped up the forthcoming film, which centres around a pivotal 24 hours in the life of its title character.

The Oscar win for Oppenheimer could not come at a more fascinating time in the Corkman’s career. The actor recently set up a production company, Big Things, with film producer Alan Moloney, who he has worked with on several movies including 2002’s Intermission, and Steve is their second project. 

Getting films made is a challenging and costly business, and he did so in a bid to shape and drive the screen stories he tells in the future. Such a move is becoming more commonplace with prolific actors - for example, Emma Stone partnered with Ireland’s Element Pictures and she co-produced Poor Things, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar this weekend. Had the film won Best Picture, Stone would have won a second Oscar.

Murphy both produced and stars in 'Small Things Like These'

Murphy’s next release, an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, is the very first film he will both produce and star in. He was instrumental in getting it made years before the cameras started rolling.

It was Murphy who first came across Keegan’s book and saw its potential as a movie. He brought it first to Moloney and subsequently to Hollywood stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who came on board. The duo run Artists Equity — an independent, artist-led studio — and helped get the film, shot in Ireland, into production. The film was also backed by Screen Ireland.

Set to come to cinemas later this year, early buzz has been strong for the movie, in which the actor plays a coal delivery driver who makes a startling discovery in a convent in 1980s Ireland. Eileen Walsh — who co-starred with Murphy in his first ever play in Cork, Disco Pigs — will be his co-star. 

Enda Walsh wrote the screenplay, with Tim Mielants — who Murphy worked with on Peaky Blinders  — directing. Fellow co-star Emily Watson recently won Best Supporting Actress for her role as a nun in the movie at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, where Small Things had its world premiere.

Cillian Murphy as Thomas Shelby in 'Peaky Blinders'. Picture: PA/BBC/Mandabach TV/Tiger Aspect. 

With respect and affection for the actor in Hollywood now at an all-time high, Oscar success will propel creative possibilities for Murphy — both in front of and behind the camera. It will increase interest both in the actor’s star power onscreen, and in his new production company, as he seeks out further projects to develop.

Murphy has said he’d been considering producing for a while in a bid to help get the stories he feels most passionate about made. After completing his role as Thomas Shelby in the global hit series Peaky Blinders, he spent several months seeking the right script for his next role.

 “From my own point of view, I definitely felt like now was a good time to have a bit more agency for myself in terms of generating work,” he recently said in an interview with Deadline.

Many of his peers feel Murphy’s win is not just deserved but overdue, following a stellar career spanning over more than three decades, and the respect for him throughout awards season has been obvious. Now all eyes will be on the Corkman as he dons his producer hat at this exciting time in his career.