Cillian Murphy has an incredible career behind him, thanks to the likes of the Peaky Blinders franchise and Oppenheimer. Despite his A-list status and numerous roles in blockbusters films, the Irish actor has managed to keep his personal life relatively private, especially when it comes to his marriage and his sons.
The star and wife Yvonne McGuinness share two sons: Malachy, 20, and Aran, 18. The actor has always been a hands-on dad, telling the Guardian in 2006 that he would visit his wife Yvonne during filming breaks when she was pregnant with their son.
"My wife was pregnant with our son, and we were running around the hills of west Cork shooting up Black and Tans," he explained to the publication. In 2019, Cillian reflected on the difficulties in raising his teenage sons while working as an actor.
"That work-life balance thing is hard," he said to GQ. "I have an amazing wife and I couldn't do this without her and her understanding. But it is a struggle. I think it is for any dad whose work takes him away, which it generally does, and which consumes him, which my work does."
While some children may feel embarrassed by their famous parents, this isn't the case with Malachy and Aran who will join their father to watch his films during family nights together. Cillian told Rolling Stone in 2023: "We don't do 'Dad's Movie Night', but they like some of my films. They say all my films are really intense."
The actor is very close to his family and during an acceptance speech at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, he said: "Two-thirds of them are sitting down there. We had to leave one of them at home doing exams. But just thanks for putting up with me — putting up with the half me and the shadow me and the absent me, the remains of me when I'm doing a film like this or work in general. You're always there. I love it. So thanks, guys."
© Alberto E. RodriguezWhile Malachy and Aran have grown up outside of the public eye, Aran has expressed an interest in following in Cillian's footsteps. At the age of 11, he played Hamnet in a production of the same name, which focused on the life of William Shakespeare's son.
The budding actor has since appeared in 2022 hit Lola and is due to make an appearance in Klara and the Sun, and he has already been spotted on set. Cillian spoke to HELLO! at the Oscar Wilde Awards on in 2024 and said of his son: "I'm very, very proud of him, he's a great, great actor."
© Getty ImagesThe star has plenty of advice for his young son, once saying in an interview with E!: "I say this all the time. I did a play when I was very young, and I think I was rushing out to get to the pub and I just dropped my costume on the ground and this older actor said, 'Always, always hang up your costume.'
"And what he meant by that was not just hang it up, but like you're just the fella prancing around on stage there. There's a whole machine here, like technicians and stage management and front of house, and you're just the act. You're just one cog in this whole wheel. I've never forgotten that."
