Cillian Murphy Connected With Oppenheimer By Watching These Two Unrelated Films

Though Hollywood has made decades of attempts to bring the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer to life, those films apparently weren't at the forefront of actor Cillian Murphy's mind while he prepared to play the famous American physicist in Christopher Nolan's historical drama "Oppenheimer." In fact, the two films that helped him connect with his work the most had nothing at all to do with Oppenheimer, the atomic bomb, or even World War II.

Instead, seemingly to understand the specific tone, pace, and grand scale "Oppenheimer" hoped to capture, Murphy told the Independent that he looked to two classic films: "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Amadeus." The former — a critically acclaimed three-and-a-half hour historical and biographical epic directed by legendary British filmmaker David Lean — helped Murphy interpret "the scale and the life-story aspect" of covering Oppenheimer's 30-year journey from troubled student to scientific legend to political pariah.

But while "Lawrence" gave Murphy the outlines of "Oppenheimer's" bigger picture, "Amadeus" provided the texture of a few brushstrokes. Through the bitter (and almost entirely fictitious) rivalry between Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce), Murphy better understood how Oppenheimer's rivalry with AEC chairman Lewis Strauss (played by haunting post-Marvel Robert Downey Jr.) could appear on screen. Of course, it's unlikely "Oppenheimer" provided Murphy his first encounter with either film, as he has long teased an eclectic knowledge and appreciation of classic cinema.

Though Cillian Murphy was arguably best known (before "Oppenheimer," at least) for scene-stealing supporting roles in genre blockbusters like Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" trilogy or the more recent "A Quiet Place Part II," the 47-year-old Irish actor has expressed a personal interest in films far from the contemporary or the mainstream.

In an interview with Far Out magazine, Murphy shared some of his all-time favorite pieces of cinema, only two of which postdate 1980. Among his picks were Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," Jerry Schatzberg's "Scarecrow," Neil Jordan's "The Butcher Boy," and Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets." His oldest pick was Charles Laughton's 1955 film "The Night of the Hunter," while his most recent was the 2011 Ben Wheatley crime thriller "Kill List." Murphy also appears to share an affinity for Hal Ashby with "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" star Charlie Day — Murphy notes both "Harold and Maude" and "Being There" among his favorites, the latter of which inspired Day's ambitious 2023 directorial debut "Fool's Paradise."

For his part, Murphy seems to be passing down his love of film to his children. Declining to offer his four favorites to Letterboxd (a task that admittedly daunts most of those asked by the cinema social media platform), Murphy instead shared four films he'd recently watched with his family: "Midnight Cowboy," "The Big Lebowski," "Apocalypse Now," and "La Haine."