No, you’re not having déjà vu. No, de-ageing technology hasn’t advanced at a concerning rate. The face you’re seeing here isn’t Cillian, but Aran Murphy, the Oscar-winning actor’s 19-year-old son. Owing to the limitations of the written word, you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that they also share the same modest, considered manner and the same gentle Irish accent.
Not that you’ll hear it in Youth, the HBO series created by Sharon Horgan that’s set to introduce Murphy to the world in a big way. Youth follows Alex (Horgan) as she faces off against her sixties and her belligerent, London-raised son Rauri (Murphy), who is in freefall after completing sixth form.
Murphy was aware of Horgan’s oeuvre before meeting her — calling her a “badass icon” for her work on Bad Sisters and Motherland — but he laughs at the suggestion that they knew each other. “Most people just kind of assume that we knew each other,” he says, the Irishness heavily implied.
Murphy had his first audition with none other than Nina Gold — the revered casting director responsible for the faces of The Crown, Game of Thrones and many of the recent Star Wars films. He and Horgan met a week later, when he was officially offered the role.
Rauri is decidedly less mild-mannered than Murphy. Within the first 30 minutes of Youth he protests his own graduation, moons his classmates and stuffs a sharing burrata into his face. “I’m not really a burrata fan,” he admits, saying they had to “genetically engineer” the monster mozzarella for extra effect. “But I think everyone should just do it once. Just go to a really fancy restaurant, order a burrata, and…” he mimes shoving it into his mouth.
“Being shipped off to New Zealand during school to shoot a Taika Waititi film… even saying that doesn’t feel real”
Youth isn’t the only big project Murphy has set for release this year. He’s also due to star in War, the HBO divorce drama starring Sienna Miller and Dominic West, and Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun. “I’ve always been a humungous fan of his work,” Murphy says of Waititi. “Being shipped off to New Zealand during school to shoot a Taika film… even saying that doesn’t feel real.”
But it was Youth that provided the biggest learning curve, Murphy reveals. “I managed to feel a bit more confident and I think that was because it was a bigger role,” he says. “It was definitely a new experience to learn how to work consistently, to not have big breaks, and to try and understand the arc of the character. But again, that was aided by the fact that Sharon’s writing is so good.”
Let’s just hope there’s no more burratas lined up if the show is commissioned for a second season.
Youth is on HBO Max now; War is on Sky from October 2; Klara and the Sun is in cinemas from October 23
