Cillian Murphy’s Wife Is The Reason He’s So Grounded — Inside Their Relationship
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Cillian Murphy is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Whether you love him in Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster hit Oppenheimer or in the period drama series Peaky Blinders, it’s only fair to want to know more about the Irish actor’s personal life at home. Who is Cillian Murphy’s wife? Read on to learn more.
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Murphy and his wife, Yvonne McGuinness, have kept their relationship out of the public eye. McGuinness’ Instagram and Twitter accounts are both set to private, while Murphy has opted to not share his live on social media. His wife made a rare appearance at the 81st Golden Globe Awards on January 7, 2024, to support Murphy, who won Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Oppenheimer.
When the Irish actor went up to accept his award, he asked the audience “do I have lipstick all over my nose?” after his wife kissed him. Then, when everyone shouted “yes!” he charmingly said that he was “just gonna leave it.” Viewers expressed their love for the unfiltered moment on social media. “Thinking about Cillian Murphy not caring about his wife’s lipstick covering his face and therefore setting the bar even higher,” one user penned on X alongside a clip from the speech.
In an interview with People in 2005, the actor explained that “fame thing” was never his goal. “I just want to improve,” he said. “If I can leave one film behind that’s something that affects somebody, that’s absolutely fine.” He also credited his wife for keeping him grounded. “It’s very important to have somebody like that. My life hasn’t changed in any way, really. I still have the same friends and we go to the same places.”
The Peaky Blinders actor also has firm boundaries on his social and work life. “That work-life balance thing is hard. I have an amazing wife and I couldn’t do this without her and her understanding. But it is a struggle,” he told The Guardian in 2021. He continued, “I think it is for any dad whose work takes him away, which it generally does, and which consumes him, which my work does.“
Read on to learn all about Cillian Murphy’s wife and their two children.
1. Who is Cillian Murphy’s wife, Yvonne McGuinness?
Cillian Murphy’s wife, Yvonne McGuinness, is a visual artist in Dublin, Ireland, specializing in performance art. She received a BFA from Crawford College of Art, Cork, in 1997 and an MFA from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2003. According to her website, her installations incorporate “film, performance, sculptural and textile elements, sound, and writing.”
“She has an interest in embodied experience of place and belonging by staging live, public, interventions and performances which create surreal and dynamic moments of interaction and connection to place, time and communities,” her bio says. “This is immersive work, which is collaborative and generally temporary. Her film installation work often reconstructs the documentation of these performances for gallery contexts.”
McGuinness’s work has been commissioned internationally and earned awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Fingal Arts office, and South County Dublin Arts office. Rehearsals, McGuinness’s recent solo exhibition of new fabric and film works, was presented at the Butler Gallery in her hometown of Kilkenny from October 2023 to January 2024.
“Rehearsals was developed and inspired by the environs, architecture and people of Kilkenny; past and present,” the exhibition description reads. “Bound into this collective history is the biography of McGuinness whose paternal family have been involved in the political life of the city for three generations. This legacy of political engagement fuels the work.”
McGuinness was also the primary caretaker for their two children while Murphy filmed Peaky Blinders in Liverpool, England. Murphy told The Guardian he had “zero” life. He also explained what it was like going home to Dublin after filming wrapped each season, including having time to decompress. “It takes time. My wife can see it happening. ‘OK. Tommy’s gradually leaving. I’m getting Cillian back,’” he revealed.
2. How did Cillian Murphy meet his wife?
How did Cillian Murphy and his wife, Yvonne McGuinness, meet? The actor met his spouse when he was cast in his first acting role in the 1990s. He appeared in a local production of Disco Pigs in Cork, Ireland, which turned into a hit and eventually a film in 2001.
Disco Pigs toured in Dublin and London and also internationally for 18 months. Murphy and McGuinness first met during this time, and she followed her husband on most of the tour, according to People.
“That time, making Disco Pigs, was kind of the most important period of my life,” he said in an interview with The Guardian in 2016. “The people I met there remain my closest friends … They shaped me in terms of my tastes, in terms of what I wanted to do with my life.”
He continued, “And it was around the same time I met my wife. She came on tour with us. It was so exciting, 20 years ago or whatever it was — we were all just kids, trying to find our way — but such a special, special time.”
In 2001, the couple moved from Ireland to London, England, so McGuinness could attend the Royal College of Art. The lovebirds officially tied the knot in 2004. They’ve been together for nearly 30 years.
3. How many kids does Cillian Murphy have with his wife?
Cillian Murphy and his wife, Yvonne McGuinness, have two sons, Malachy and Aram, whom they raised in Ireland. “We wanted them to be Irish, I suppose,” Murphy told The Guardian in 2016. “It’s amazing how quickly their accents have adapted. Even within a year of moving back, they are fading into this rakish west Brit kind of thing. Which I think, hopefully, will get them lots of girls when they’re 15.”
Murphy sees a level of confidence in his sons that he did not feel at the same age. “I had bravado. But, deep down… I don’t know, they seem better adjusted than I was. More sure of themselves. I’m happy about that. For me, it was something that took a long time to figure out: that it’s all right to be you, that it’s all right to be an individual.”
The couple welcomed their first son, Malachy Murphy, in 2005, one year after marriage. McGuinness was pregnant with Malachy while Murphy was filming The Wind That Blows The Barley. “I was living at home with my folks; my wife was pregnant with our son; and we were running around the hills of west Cork shooting up Black and Tans. Fantastic!” he told The Guardian.
In 2007, Murphy and Guinness’s second son, Aran Murphy, was born. Aran followed in the footsteps of his father and became an actor. In 2019, Aran performed in a one-person play, Hamnet, based on the son of Shakespeare and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York. The New York Times reviewed the play and called Murphy a “blossomed” actor.
Cillian spoke highly of his son’s acting skills two years later with The Guardian. “He was so chilled about it, you know? He would come off stage and ask what the score was in the Liverpool game. And, again, you’re slightly jealous of that!” Murphy explained. “There’s the danger that overanalyzing everything can erode the simplicity.”
The family lives in Ireland and doesn’t have internet in their homes. “I’m a father of two teenagers, I once was young. I recognise how tricky it is for a young person today in society,” he explained. “It is a very complex time growing up, things are changing a lot at a very accelerated rate. We’re all aware of the effect of the internet online and life online,” the Oppenheimer star told Mirror UK in July 2023.
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