Cillian Murphy to Star in and Produce Movie "Steve"

"Oppenheimer" and "Peaky Blinders" star Cillian Murphy has landed his new acting gig.

Murphy, who is set to debut "Small Things Like These" (in which he stars and which he produced) at the opening of the Berlin Film Festival next week and launching his production company Big Things Films, has set his next starring and producing gig with "Steve".

The movie is an adaptation of Max Porter’s novel "Shy" with longtime collaborator Alan Moloney. Netflix has greenlighted Steve in collaboration with "Big Things" and will distribute globally. Production begins in the spring.

"Steve" is a reimagining of Porter’s "Shy" and traces a pivotal 24 hours in the life of its eponymous character, a headteacher (Murphy) of a last-chance reform school who struggles to keep his students in line, while also grappling with his spiraling mental health.

Moloney and Murphy are producers. "Small Things Like These" (and Peaky Blinders alum) Tim Mielants is directing. Porter wrote the screenplay. He and Murphy previously collaborated on the stage adaptation of the author’s "Grief is the Thing with Feathers" and also on the short film" All of This Unreal Time".

This is an exciting time for recent Golden Globe winner Murphy who is nominated for an Oscar, BAFTA, and SAG Award as lead actor in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.

With Big Things Films, he is cementing himself as a producer after cutting his teeth as an executive producer on three seasons of Peaky Blinders and as producer of "Small Things Like These". 

An independent, story-driven company, "Big Things" was initially created to produce "Small Things Like These", and aims to collaborate with singular filmmakers, writers, actors, and directors, both new and established, who have something to say and are passionate about what they do. "Big Things" will collaborate with like-minded financiers, studios, distributors, and streamers in both film and television.

The company will seek material in which Murphy will act, but not exclusively. Projects will be designed to provoke, inspire, and explore themes that take audiences to places that can sometimes be uncomfortable, but more often reveal core truths about who we are, regardless of genre or format, the partners say.

Meanwhile, Berlinale opener "Small Things Like These" is based on the Booker Prize shortlisted novel by Claire Keegan with a screenplay by Enda Walsh. 

Murphy, Eileen Walsh, and Emily Watson star in the story which takes place over Christmas 1985, when devoted father Bill Furlong (Murphy) discovers the startling secrets being kept by the convent in his town, and some shocking truths about his own life as well. 

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity financed the pic and “couldn’t have been better partners,” Murphy says.

Murphy and Moloney’s working relationship began with John Crowley’s 2002 Intermission which smashed Irish box office records to become the highest-grossing indie of its time and won Best Picture at the IFTAs. 

In 2004, Moloney and Murphy reunited for Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto for which Murphy received his first Golden Globe nomination. In 2008, they collaborated on Perrier’s Bounty, and then again in 2019 on "The Delinquent Season". Moloney’s extensive credits also include "The Escapist", "Albert Nobbs", "Sweetness in the Belly"," Brooklyn", and "Kiss the Future".