Cillian Murphy shouted out his “Oppenhomies” while accepting his leading actor BAFTA award.
After thanking the film’s director Christopher Nolan, producer Emma Thomas and Universal Pictures chief Donna Langley, Murphy said: “I want to thank my fellow nominees and my Oppenhomies and, in fact, all of you in the room. I know it’s a cliché to say I’m in awe of you, but I genuinely am in awe.”
Murphy played J. Robert Oppenheimer in Nolan’s biographical drama, which took home seven awards throughout the night, including best director for Nolan and best film. The film, which scored 13 nominations in total, chronicles the life and career of Oppenheimer as he develops the atomic bomb during World War II.
“Thank you for seeing something in me that I probably didn’t see myself,” Nolan told the director while accepting his award. “Chris, thank you for that extraordinary, exhilarating script and for always pushing me and for always demanding excellence.”
“Oppenheimer was this colossally naughty, complex character and he meant different things to different people,” Murphy continued. “One man’s monster is another man’s hero. That’s why I love movies, because we have a space to celebrate and interrogate and investigate that complexity. And it’s a privilege to be part of this community with you all.”
He was up against Bradley Cooper in “Maestro,” Colman Domingo in “The Rustin,” Paul Giamatti in “The Holdovers,” Barry Keoghan in “Saltburn” and Teo Yoo in “Past Lives” in the leading actor category.
Murphy was a 2007 nominee for the BAFTA Rising Star award. In 2023, he scored a leading actor nomination at the BAFTA TV Awards for “Peaky Blinders.” “Oppenheimer” is his first nomination at the BAFTA Film Awards. The Irish actor is also nominated for leading actor at the Oscars for his role in “Oppenheimer.”
“Cillian Murphy, with a thousand-yard beam, the half-smile of an intellectual rake, and a way of keeping everything close to the vest, gives a phenomenal performance as Oppenheimer, making him fascinating and multi-layered,” wrote Owen Gleiberman about Murphy’s performance in his review of the film for PvNew. “His ‘Oppie’ is an elegant mandarin who’s also a bit snakelike — at once a cold prodigy and an ardent humanist, an aristocrat and a womanizer, a Jewish outsider who becomes a consummate insider, and a man who oversees the invention of nuclear weapons without a shred of doubt or compunction, only to confront the world he created from behind a defensive shield of guilt that’s a lot less self-aware.”
Despite the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon of last summer, after both “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” landed the same July release date, Greta Gerwig’s movie failed to take home a single award at the BAFTAs. Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” was similarly shut out.
