Cillian Murphy Quotes

“A director, I forget who, told me that it takes 30 years to make an actor. And I believe that. You have to learn your craft, learn your trade – and also you have to live a life and experience things.”

“Actors' careers are random with a capital 'R'.”

“After kids, the desire to improve as an actor remains, but time becomes hugely important. I want to do good work and do it well but then be at home.

I love hanging out with my children, seeing how they behave, and stealing ideas off them.

You can't do that if you're in a hotel, on a plane, or a film set. It's not real life.”

“Every Irish person of my generation and earlier, we were raised Catholic and we'd have to learn it in school, we'd to learn the catechism by rote.”

“For me it's always been about the stories, not what medium. The medium is secondary to the stories.”

“For me, acting is not intellectual, it’s instinctual.

But it’s always really useful to have all of the research, it’s your kind of due diligence to do that.”

“For me, drama is conflict.”

“For me, it's about being at home and living a life. Taking the dog for a walk, doing the shopping, emptying the dishwasher, going for a run.”

“I always think it's a sign of a truly gifted director when they can move seamlessly between genres.”

“I come from a long line of teachers. Not only did I not go into the family business; I had an aborted law career and I played in bands. 'Disco Pigs' was my first professional acting experience.”

“I don't care if people perceive me as always selling out because I'm doing a studio picture. For me, the whole thing is you should be diverse in your choices; that's the beauty of being an actor, you should be able to do that.”

“I don't do karaoke. You know how some people don't like massages? They don't like massages; I don't like karaoke.”

“I don't have a burning passion to live in America per se but I would certainly like to work there.”

“I don't know if anyone will ever sit beside me on a plane again.”

“I don't think they'd ever make a movie about Chuck Baker but I'd love to play Chuck Baker.”

“I imagine being shot by a woman hurts the same as being shot by a man. Just a bit more shameful.”

“I know I am old-fashioned, but I don't want to bring out a fashion line, I don't want to bring out an album.

I just want to do the work as best as I can, and if that effects change for somebody, then that is great. I don't want to change the world.”

“I like being at home with my music and my books. I’ve done all the partying, I’ve done enough partying for four or five people as a young fella. But now I like the quiet life.”

“I like the little bit of distance that London affords me and I like living in a world capital. I like having the culture at my fingertips.”

“I like watching film, I go to the cinema, but a lot of times I go to see kids' films.”

“I never make a distinction between doing a film in Hollywood or doing a film independently. It's just the story. It's always the story for me.

The constants are that it should challenge me and I shouldn't repeat myself. And the story should always be a story worth telling.”

“I personally think if something's not a challenge there's no point doing it because you're not gonna learn much.”

“I really feel actors should try and do as much diverse work as possible to try and keep it interesting.”

“I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything – fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself – and then you kind of go, 'Actually, this voting thing is amazing,' because you have a chance to change it, right?”

“I suppose I tend to like slightly darker things – people have levelled that on me before and I accept that because in my opinion, if I mention the best movies or the best books, there's always something that's involving slightly darker element of out psyche.

I like seeing people under pressure. I like seeing what happens to people when they're under pressure.”

“I suppose professionally, as an actor, empathy is the most powerful tool you have, really, in trying to understand a character and trying to understand other people's motivations and so on.”

“I take my hat off to the ladies. The amount of grooming, plucking and shaving and all the other things men never have to do.

I went down and spent time with transvestites in London in the clubs and all that. Got an insight to that world, and it's a mad world, but they are very warm and very open people. It was a great experience.”

“I think any actor that says 'I never watch my films' is a liar because you have to watch it at least once and also you're going to watch it when you're doing your ADR.”

“I think if you play characters, it's very important not to ever tag them with any sort of disorder, or diagnose them, or whatever. You have to normalize the behavior to get inside the character.”

“I think it's necessary to keep moving forward. I've always said that nostalgia is death, really for anyone creative.”