The One Thing Cillian Murphy Absolutely Refuses to Do in His Next Role
The actor is tired of doing a certain thing.
Without a doubt, 2023 will go down as the year of Cillian Murphy, as the iconic character actor finally landed the biggest role of his career and blew away the competition with his insane performance. Not only did Murphy earn $10 million for his starring role in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, but he is also likely to win his first Oscar for portraying the legendary father of the atomic bomb.
However, it looks like the actor got a bit tired after working for nine years on Peaky Blinders and starring in Oppenheimer, and not for the reason you might think. Murphy clearly enjoys portraying strong yet conflicted characters, so playing anti-heroes is not really the reason for his fatigue.
The thing is, Cillian Murphy has been forced to play smokers for a long time now, so posing with a cigarette in front of the camera is not something he wants to do for his future roles.
Both Tommy Shelby and J. Robert Oppenheimer smoke a lot, and even though the actor was always smoking herbal cigarettes on camera, he cares too much about his health to continue playing smokers.
'I've smoked so many fake cigarettes for Peaky and [Oppenheimer]. My next character will not be a smoker. They can't be good for you. Even herbal cigarettes have health warnings now,' Murphy said.
During his nine years playing Shelby in Peaky Blinders, Murphy reportedly smoked more than 3,000 herbal cigarettes, which explains why he is so tired of playing such characters. While fans support Cillian for taking care of his health, most of them are a bit worried about his future as an actor.
Though Murphy will certainly find plenty of roles even if he refuses to smoke on screen, he will still return as Shelby in future Peaky Blinders movies, as creator Steven Knight recently revealed. Of course, fans will be incredibly happy to reunite with the character, but seeing Shelby without his iconic cigarettes will be a vastly different experience.
So perhaps Murphy will still be forced to smoke herbal cigarettes, even if he doesn't want to.
Source: The Guardian.