This soft-spoken, blue-eyed Irish boy has a penchant for portraying volatile characters. Cillian Murphy was born in Cork, Ireland in 1974 to a school inspector and a French school teacher. He attended Presentation Brothers College Cork and was preparing for a career in law, but discovered that he had a natural flair for the stage when he starred as Pig in Concordia’s production of Disco Pig. His theater debut earned him rave reviews and soon he was cutting class to go on tours. Cillian Murphy starred in several movies in the UK before American audiences came to know him as the bicycle courier in Danny Royle’s zombie apocalypse thriller, “28 Days Later”.