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CILLIAN Murphy’s lookalike son has revealed he had so much fun filming Sharon Horgan’s new HBO series that his fits of giggles occasionally brought production to a halt.
Aran Murphy, 19, may look like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth but he is currently stealing every scene in Youth, in which he plays a tearaway teen.
Speaking this week, the talented young actor said Horgan’s razor sharp script frequently had him in fits of laughter during filming.
He added: ‘It was really fun on set, sometimes too much fun. I would be stalling scenes by laughing too much [at the lines]. I was just corpsing with laughter, which delayed everything significantly.
‘My character Ruairí is getting caught up in things he didn’t mean to get caught up in. He’s an 18-year-old who’s just finished school and when I was shooting it I was also an 18-year-old. The show is all about his relationship with his mother.’
Speaking this week, the talented young actor said Horgan’s razor sharp script frequently had him in fits of laughter during filming
The Oscar winner’s son said when he read the script for Youth, he was ‘drawn to Sharon’s nuanced portrayal of a teenager’ and how she was able to make his character multi-dimensional.
Aran said: ‘Sharon is a total genius, powerhouse. She was open to my ideas and she was always asking me questions like, “Would a teenager say this?”’
In one scene, Ruairí bares his bottom at classmates on the last day of school, while, in another, days later, disgusted girls at his university halls of residence reveal him to be something of a ‘pervert’.
It’s all a misunderstanding though, thanks to a malicious rumour spread by his vengeful ex Mia.
Unsurprisingly, given the scandal, Ruairí drops out of college and moves back in with his long-suffering mother Alex (Horgan), telling her he wants to become a stand-up comedian.
Alex has her own problems though, and is trying to balance a high-flying literary agent job with living life as a sex-starved and single menopausal mum.
His character has a rocky relationship with his father Lorcan (Killing Eve actor Owen McDonnell).
In real life, Aran’s own dad dragged him out of school in London and moved him to Ireland because he was developing a ‘posh’ English accent.
Discussing his decision to uproot Aran and his brother Malachy to Dublin, Cillian said: ‘My kids were routinely coming home from school with very posh English accents, and I was like, “No, we’re not having that.”
‘We didn’t want them to sound like little lords!’
In real life, Aran’s own dad dragged him out of school in London and moved him to Ireland because he was developing a ‘posh’ English accent
Beyond the accents, Cillian and his wife, Yvonne McGuinness, wanted their children to grow up experiencing Irish culture and identity firsthand.
With Cillian Murphy as a dad, it’s perhaps not surprising that Aran was drawn to acting. And he says it’s something he wanted to do from a young age.
He added: ‘I always loved it. When I was younger, I was always doing the school plays. Then when I was 11, I did this play and kind of went from there.’
Though he’s still only 19, Aran’s career looks to be on an upward trajectory: he can currently also be seen in the recently released Sky series War, in which he stars alongside Sienna Miller and Dominic West.
The series focuses on a scandalous, high-profile divorce case between a tech mogul (West) and a famous international film star (Miller).
Aran plays Gabriel, who is Miller’s 16-year-old son and West’s stepson.
Such early success might be enough to turn a boy’s head but the level-headed young actor insists: ‘At the moment, I’m just taking it as it comes. I don’t have any kind of a game plan.
‘I’m just going to see what comes next. I’m very excited.’
Youth is available on the HBO Max channel.
English (US) ·