The world of film has been the stage for a great many artistic love stories, and not just between co-stars. Influential directors will more often than not have their muses. Martin Scorsese has Robert De Niro, Jean-Luc Godard had Anna Karina, Pedro Almodóvar has Penélope Cruz, and Christopher Nolan has Cillian Murphy.
The director-actor duo have now worked together on six films, starting with Batman Begins in 2005, and culminating in 2023’s Oppenheimer where Murphy finally stepped into the leading role. Only Michael Caine has collaborated with the director more times. Nolan has gone as far as to say that he’d like Murphy to play him in a film about his life, and that, given the chance, he’d cast the Peaky Blinders star in every movie he makes for the rest of time.
“If I could cast Cillian in every film I ever do, and just lean on him for the rest of my career, I’d be a happy man,” Nolan told Entertainment Weekly. But before the two became as inseparable as they are today, Nolan was just an up-and-coming director reading an article about the film 28 Days Later and the virtually unknown blue-eyed actor who led it called Cillian Murphy. And we mentioned the eyes, specifically, because they are just as responsible for this love affair as anything else.
“I saw a picture of you with your shaved head and your crazy eyes — no offense. I remember being struck by your presence, literally from that one photograph,” the director said of his first impression of Murphy. He then did some research on the actor’s filmography, and became “very excited about the idea of meeting [him], and having [him] screen test for Batman.” Murphy auditioned for the role that eventually went to Christian Bale, but the two’s “instant connection” marked the start of a prosperous partnership as the actor took on the terrifying role of the villain Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow.
Oppenheimer curiously came about in a similar manner. Nolan felt that attaching an actor to the man from the inception of the project would limit him as a screenwriter, but once he was done with the script, there was no doubt in his mind about the only person who could match the physicist’s haunting porcelain look. It was the eyes, again.
“I’ve been staring at the cover of the book American Prometheus for so many months,” Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter (Oppenheimer is based on the 2005 biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin). “There’s this photograph, black and white, a light blue-eyed stare, very intense, of this guy,” the director continued, then saying he knew instantly who could get it right. Murphy didn’t know about the film until Nolan called him with an offer. It would begin shooting in six months.
But the actor is just as dedicated to the director. Before Oppenheimer, there were a number of supportive parts, including an unnamed shivering soldier in Dunkirk and cameos in the second and third Batman films. If it’s Nolan calling, Murphy will show up. “I’ll always turn up for Chris, no matter what the part is,” the Irish player told Entertainment Weekly, but finally being offered the lead made for “one of the best days of [Murphy’s] life.”
The two men cherish the level of trust that comes from collaborating frequently and blossoming a friendship outside of work. It allows for more daring artistic dances and higher risk-taking, free of judgment or fear, which, in turn, makes better cinema, and drives the collaboration forward. “To me, that’s the most important thing. If you trust the director, you can really go out on a limb, and be vulnerable, and expose yourself emotionally,” Murphy said.
The secret to a lasting partnership in film then, it seems, is trust and a borderline creepy obsession with your muse’s eyes.
