Cillian Murphy: Small Things Like These film tries to stay ‘faithful to book’

Oscar-winning actor Cillian Murphy has said the “biggest challenge” in filming Small Things Like These was staying “faithful to the book”.

Murphy, 48, plays father Bill Furlong in the film, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Claire Keegan, about Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries.

Speaking to the PA news agency on the red carpet at the film’s UK premiere, Murphy said: “We really tried to be faithful to the script itself, or, sorry to the book itself, I should say.

“Because it’s such a beautiful, beautiful, perfect novella.

“And so that was our biggest challenge, I think, was to keep faithful to the book.

“And then we just wanted to tell the story in a gentle, delicate way, leaving enough space for the audience, really, to come in to it to find their own way into the stories.”

The film follows Bill who, while working as a coal merchant to support his family, discovers how mothers and babies are being treated by a convent in New Ross, County Wexford.

From the 18th century, nuns operated laundries across Ireland until the final institution in Sean McDermott Street in Dublin closed in 1996.

Originally aimed at “fallen women”, the laundries’ use was expanded during the 20th century to also include women who had not been pregnant or had entered from children’s homes.

The Irish institutions became notorious for the abuse many women suffered there, with unmarked graves being discovered at one site in the 1990s. The issue prompted a formal state apology in 2013.

The Cork-born actor backed the repeal of the Irish constitution’s eighth amendment ahead of the 2018 referendum, where the public voted yes to changes making abortion legal.

He also narrated a podcast series about the survivors of the Tuam mother and baby homes in 2020.

Murphy wore a mustard-coloured jacket, complemented by a khaki shirt and a lighter hair colour, containing flecks of blonde, grey and dark brown to the event at the Curzon Mayfair.

A Royal Night Out actress Emily Watson and Eileen Walsh, who starred in The Magdalene Sisters, also graced the carpet on Thursday night.

Watson wore a long black ensemble and Walsh joined her, wearing a black velvet dress with cut-out details.

The event was also attended by The Virgin Queen star Anne-Marie Duff and The Devil Wears Prada actor Stanley Tucci and his wife Felicity Blunt.

Murphy is reprising his role as gangster Tommy Shelby for the upcoming Peaky Blinders film from creator Steven Knight, with reports that filming is currently taking place in Birmingham, where the TV show is set.

This year the Irish actor won the best actor gong at the Baftas and Oscars respectively for his role in Christopher Nolan’s historical drama Oppenheimer.

Murphy has also appeared in films including Danny Boyle’s 2002 movie 28 Days Later and Nolan’s 2010 film Inception.