His beginnings with art were not due at all to acting, but to music. These wishes prompted him to form a rock group called Sons of Mr. Greengenes with his brother Páidi and some friends, inspired by Frank Zappa. Cillian knows how to play drums and guitar.
After a while, he gave up the idea of being a rock musician and began studying law at a local university in Cork. But after four years of pursuing said career, the young Cillian was seduced by a couple of works by Concordia Theater, leading him to sign up for an acting workshop led by Pat tiernan.
His debut role was that of Pig, in the work “Disco Pigs” from Concordia Theater, an interpretation that critics and the public received with applause and praise.
Despite having studied four years of law at university, Murphy decides to abandon his studies due to the great demand for his works as an actor.
He continued doing theater for a while, participating in Shakespeare’s “Much Noise and Few Nuts,” but soon he would leave the world of the curtain to move to the giant screen.
It was not until 1998 that he made his film debut, with the film “The Tale of Sweety Barrett“ in the supporting role of Pat the bartender. A year later, he would participate in some films such as “The Watchmen”, “Eviction”, “At Death’s Door” playing the son of death, “Sunburn” Y “The Trench”.
In 2001 after working in “Filleann an ugly”, would come his first leading role in the film “On the Edge”, film where he plays Jonathan Breec. After this film, it would be his turn to participate in “How Harry Became a Tree”, and finally that same year the film adaptation of the work would be made “Disco Pigs”, directed by Kirsten sheridan, where again Cillian would be in charge of starring in the feature film playing his old role as Pig.
The role that would make him famous would arrive in 2002, with the film “28 Days Later” directed by Danny boyle, a Thriller in which a virus has infected the human race, turning anyone who is a carrier into a murderer.
In the following year, he played roles for the films “Zonad“, “Intermission”, “The girl of the pearl” together with important actors such as Colin firth Y Scarlett Johansson Y “Cold Mountain”
In August 2004, after spending 10 years with his girlfriend, he decided to get married.
In the summer of 2005, he returned to his homeland to film “The wind shakes the barley”, a film about the Irish Civil War set in 1919, in which Murphy will become one of the two main brothers who join the guerrillas in the fight for Irish independence. The film would see the light in 2006.
In 2005 he would be seen in a fairly important role in the first installment of Christopher Nolan about the bat man, “Batman starts”. Although he originally auditioned to play Batman, Murphy’s role would ultimately be the one. Dr. Jonathan Crane, a doctor fascinated with the human mind that creates fear-inducing toxins thus becoming the Scarecrow.
In the same year he participated in two more films called “Breakfast on Pluto” in which he plays Patrick “kitten” Bladen, and “Red Eye” playing the role of Jackson Rippner.
In 2006, he stars “Sunshine: Solar Alert”, directed by Danny boyle, a director Murphy had worked with before. The film is about a group of astronauts who want to prevent the sun from going out and thus the earth from dying.
Cillian is fluent in several languages, including English, French and of course Irish.