The author relates the joys of working with the Oscar-winner on ‘Steve’, the new film taken from his own novella ‘Shy’
Collaborators Cillian Murphy and Max Porter at TIFF in September 2025. Photo: The Hollywood Reporter via Getty
It’s become something of an artistic bromance, one that has yielded a stage play, an arts festival, and now a critically acclaimed feature film, Steve. When pressed, however, celebrated author Max Porter is unequivocal when I ask just what it is about Cillian Murphy that makes them dovetail so well.
“Without casting aspersions on anyone else,” Porter says of the Cork Oscar-winner, “I just think the fact he’s not a dick really helps. He’s not a show off, and he can’t do artificiality because he’s a person of deep integrity. So I admire and love that about him.