{"id":74415,"date":"2025-09-20T01:07:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T01:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/74415\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T01:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T01:07:15","slug":"its-a-love-letter-to-teachers-cillian-murphy-shares-inspiration-behind-his-latest-film-steve-in-cinemas-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/74415\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s a love letter to teachers\u2019 \u2013 Cillian Murphy shares inspiration behind his latest film Steve in cinemas today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Set in the mid-1990\u2019s, the film depicts a pivotal day in the life of teacher Steve \u2013 played by Mr Murphy (49) \u2013 who is working in a last-chance young offenders institution in England.<\/p>\n

The story, based on Max Porter\u2019s 2023 novella Shy, follows Steve\u2019s desperate attempts to keep the school open amid a declining reputation coupled with his own mental health battles.<\/p>\n

“You know that thing when you’re growing up, you kind of feel when you’re in school that the teacher’s lives end at half-three and you just don’t think about what happens afterwards,\u201d Mr Murphy told RT\u00c9\u2019s Oliver Callan Show.<\/p>\n

Describing teachers as being the \u201ccustodians of the next generation\u201d, Mr Murphy said: \u201cWe hand over our children to them and expect them to prepare them to take over the roles that we all have now in society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A shot from the film<\/p>\n

In the school depicted in the film, the children have been removed from mainstream education due to their behaviour and are struggling emotionally as a result.<\/p>\n

This leaves Steve with a heavy burden to carry for so many of the school\u2019s students, including Shy, portrayed by Jay Lycurgo, who is a 16-year-old with a long history of anti-social behaviour to his name.<\/p>\n

“Jay Lycargo, who plays Shy in the film, is a wonderful, wonderful young actor,\u201d Mr Murphy said.<\/p>\n

\"Shy,<\/p>\n

Shy, played by Jay Lycargo (left) talks to Steve, played by Cillian Murphy<\/p>\n

Mr Lycargo was sourced after extensive casting waded through 3,500 audition tapes in the UK, going as far as visiting youth centres and boxing clubs.<\/p>\n

“It was very, very clear when we saw Jay, you know, he’s just magnetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The character of Steve does not actually feature very much in the original novella by the book\u2019s author, a factor which led Mr Porter to create the character \u201cfrom the ground up\u201d for the purposes of the film.<\/p>\n

“It was a great experience. Very raw, very kind of exposing, but very rewarding,\u201d Mr Murphy said.<\/p>\n

The Cork native uses his own accent in the film, a feature he hails as bringing authenticity to the production.<\/p>\n

“There are less layers, less of a veil I suppose, between you and the character, which is kind of scary, but also great,\u201d he said. \u201cI hadn’t done it in ages and ages, so it’s nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Murphy spoke about playing a DJ set at the Pavilion Bar in Cork last Saturday.<\/p>\n

“That was great fun. Anything music adjacent I’m always keen to get involved in because I love it.”<\/p>\n

He continued: “We had a great crowd and everyone was dancing it was great fun. It was lovely. People in Cork love dancing that’s for sure.”<\/p>\n

He also addressed the hotly anticipated release of the Peaky Blinders movie, its popularity he puts down to the original show\u2019s loyal viewership.<\/p>\n

“I hope the fans will be really happy with it. My impulse is to make it for the fans because the show became the show because of the fans. You know people talking about it and dressing up… really just caring about the characters. So the script was wonderful and it should be around sometime next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Set in the mid-1990\u2019s, the film depicts a pivotal day in the life of teacher Steve \u2013 played…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[7118,18,117,19,17,125,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-74415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cillian-murphy","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-keith-kelly","14":"tag-netflix"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}