Put up-Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy has used his Oscar cache to get the movies he needs made.
Within the two years since profitable greatest actor for taking part in “father of the atomic bomb,” Murphy has turned to a pair of intimate, kitchen-sink dramas: Small Issues Like These, which opened the Berlin competition final 12 months, and Steve, set for its world premiere in Toronto.
Each tasks are miles away, in tone and topic, from Oppenheimer. Small Issues, an adaptation of Clare Keegan’s novel, sees Murphy as a coal vendor in a poor Irish village who finds the ethical braveness to assist a girl in want. In Steve, tailored from Max Porter’s novella Shy, he performs an overworked instructor at a faculty for at-risk teenagers going via what would be the worst day of his life.
Murphy produced each via his new firm, Huge Issues Movies, with Belgian filmmaker Tim Mielants — his outdated Peaky Blinders collaborator (Season 3) — directing. Collectively, the 2 movies possible value lower than the catering invoice for Christopher Nolan’s epic.
Small Issues Like These was shot between wrapping Oppenheimer and the awards run, with financing coming collectively when Murphy’s co-star Matt Damon joined as producer. Netflix greenlit Steve proper after the Oscars.
“As quickly as I completed the Oppenheimer awards run, we went straight into Steve,” Murphy says. “It wasn’t strategic on my half, going one massive one, one small one. These had been simply the tales that drew me. They had been written by buddies, and since we had a manufacturing firm, we had been in a position to get them made. And these are precisely the form of tales that I wish to inform, the type of movies I am going to see myself.”
Jay Lycurgo as Shy, Cillian Murphy as Steve in ‘Steve’
Robert Viglasky/Neflix © 2025
Porter’s unique story was informed from the angle of Shy, a troubled teenager at a reform college, the ultimate cease earlier than jail. For the movie, Porter rewrote the narrative from Steve’s viewpoint: the weary instructor attempting to maintain Shy (Jay Lycurgo) from spinning uncontrolled.
Murphy’s household background — his mother and father had been lecturers, his grandfather a headmaster, most of his aunts and uncles educators — gave him a pure connection to the function. “Think about the toll it takes, working this experimental reform college with very difficult pupils. After which you need to go house and take care of your individual kids. It’s an especially demanding occupation.”
However the character was additionally written to suit him. “Max is aware of me so effectively, Tim is aware of me so effectively, so the character was written very a lot in my vernacular. It’s plenty of my mannerisms turned as much as 11. No costumes, no accent. All I needed to do was present up and look extraordinarily drained, which most lecturers do.”
When Porter delivered the script, Murphy despatched it straight to Netflix. “We gave [Netflix VP of U.K. Content] Anne Mensah the script on a Friday, and we had a sure on Monday,” Murphy recollects. “They’ve been sensible — we’re going to Toronto, we’re getting a theatrical launch, and if the movie connects, you’ve received this huge viewers who can see it. That’s significant for a movie like this, which has unbiased movie written throughout it.”
Steve suits right into a broader push below Mensah to again socially realist, risk-taking British tales.
“She did Adolescence, she needs to make bolder choices, she needs to go to uncharted territory,” says Mielants. Murphy agrees: “The success of Adolescence demonstrates that persons are prepared for that stuff. So long as you make the factor entertaining, audiences will watch it.”
‘Steve’
Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2025
The movie was shot solely in a single location — the reform college — and strictly chronologically.
“The one different time I’ve carried out that was on a Ken Loach movie, The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” says Murphy. “We spent two weeks on the college with the boys, workshopping, improvising. Tim received the concept to interview the children on digicam, in character. Max went away and wrote these items and we shot them. They’re within the movie.”
Mielants leaned into what he calls a “punk” type: frantic handheld camerawork, a jittering soundtrack of heavy steel and drum-and-bass, and surreal visible touches. “The script was very unconventional, so I assumed I shouldn’t shoot it in a traditional manner. I’d provide you with one thing unusual, like spinning the digicam the wrong way up, storyboard it, carry it to Max, and if he was completely satisfied, it went in.”
To maintain Murphy anchored, Mielants created “mind maps” of Steve’s emotional states — hand-scrawled diagrams pinned in Murphy’s room. “I map out his despair, the type of photos he’s received in his thoughts,” the director says. “When you noticed my mind maps you’d assume I’m mentally ailing.”
Each line of the movie was scripted, however performances had been stored uncooked. “There’s a scene when the college trustees are available in and inform Steve and the opposite lecturers they’re closing the college,” Murphy recollects. “We’d by no means met these actors earlier than. The primary time was once they walked into the room, gave us that info and bang, we’re off.”
The method was exhausting however liberating. “From the beginning, Steve is on this extremely charged state of tension, about to fall off a cliff emotionally and professionally. Staying in that state for six weeks was exhausting. However as a result of Max and Tim know me so effectively, it was exposing in a great way.”
After the “circus” of Oppenheimer and the awards season, Murphy admits he’s now recalibrating.
“I’m most likely much less inclined to work the entire time now. This 12 months I gained’t have carried out any performing in any way. I’m extra keen to be affected person and look ahead to the correct factor.”
However for Murphy, that “proper factor” will possible come from acquainted collaborators.
“I’ve all the time been a serial re-collaborator. With Chris, Oppenheimer was the sixth time we labored collectively. With Tim that is our third factor. For me, the dimensions and the finances is all the time secondary to the story. However once I make a reference to somebody and it makes it into the work, that turns into belief, which turns into shorthand. And that’s the place the wealthy work comes from.”
