Cillian Murphy explained why he always appears in Christopher Nolan's movies

Whenever it breaks that Christopher Nolan is directing a new movie, a hefty group of fans get pretty excited. The bloke makes bangers, simple as.

And it’s fair to say his films have a lot of things in common from making whopper amounts of cash and being pretty complex to featuring major celebrities and scooping up awards.

On that celebrity note, plenty of them feature one particular actor: Cillian Murphy.

A frequent collaborator of Nolan’s, the 48-year-old has starred in the likes of Oppenheimer, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk.

And the Irishman previously explained why he appears in so much of the filmmaker’s work.

The pair have been collaborating for two decades (Dave Benett/Getty Images for BFI)

Ahead of his Oscar-winning performance in the titular role in Oppenheimer last summer, Murphy talked about his dedication to and admiration for Nolan.

He told The Guardian he will ‘always turn up’ for the director and will always take a role from him, regardless of the size.

"I’ll always turn up for Chris, whatever the size of the part. Chris will call me up and I’m there. Isn’t it wonderful that filmmakers are still making challenging, demanding films within the studio system, shot on film rather than Imax?” Murphy said.

“I think he’s flying the flag. Him, Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino, are fantastic filmmakers making interesting work on a massive scale."

And the admiration is very much reciprocated with it coming as no surprise to many that Nolan names Murphy as one of his three favourite actors he’s ever worked with.

Appearing in six of his films, the filmmaker said of the Peaky Blinders star: “I’ve never seen an actor with such a commitment to the truth. But I’d never had him as the lead, so it was a thrill to be able to call him and say, ‘This is the one’.”

Murphy has been in six of Nolan's films so far (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Nolan goes as far as to call the actor ‘one of the best of his generation’ as he added to Total Film: “I’ve always known since I first met him - however many years ago it is now, almost 20 years - that he is one of the great actors, not just of his generation, but of all time."

When Murphy picked up a Golden Globe for Oppenheimer he was of course quick to praise the director in his acceptance speech.

“I knew the first time I walked on a Chris Nolan set it was different,” he said.

“I could tell by the level of vigour, focus, the level of dedication and the complete lack of seating options for actors.”

He then paid tribute to their collaboration of ‘20 years and six fecking pictures’.