{"id":628220,"date":"2026-09-18T05:16:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T05:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628220\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T05:16:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T05:16:27","slug":"who-is-aran-murphy-cillian-murphys-son-and-hbos-new-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628220\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Aran Murphy, Cillian Murphy\u2019s son and HBO\u2019s new star?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve never been particularly interested in the endless conversations and debates about Hollywood nepo babies, but the internet has taught me that there\u2019s one aspect of the whole discussion I can\u2019t resist: genetics. From Kaia Gerber and Cindy Crawford to Maya Hawke and Uma Thurman, then Margaret Qualley<\/a> and Andie MacDowell, not to mention Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, the daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who has long been one of the best examples of what the internet likes to call the genetic lottery.<\/p>\n

In recent days, my FYP has found a new obsession: comparisons between Cillian Murphy and his son Aran. The resemblance really is remarkable, but this time those viral clips prompted me to learn a little more about the 19-year-old actor, who has three new projects this year alone and could soon be known for more than being \u201cCillian Murphy\u2019s son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: Cillian Murphy has been this good for years and we just weren\u2019t paying attention<\/a><\/p>\n

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Courtesy of HBO Max<\/p>\n

Although wider audiences are only now getting to know him, Aran Murphy has been developing his relationship with acting for years, largely away from the attention his surname attracts today. At just 11, he played the title role in Hamnet, a solo play by the Irish theatre company Dead Centre that took him from Dublin to stages in London, New York, Boston, Brisbane and Hong Kong. A few years later, he landed the role of Leo in the Irish-British film Lola, but this will be the first year we truly get to see what kind of acting career he wants to build.<\/p>\n

The first of those projects is Youth, a new HBO series from Sharon Horgan, arriving on September 20. Horgan, whom we know as the creator and star of Catastrophe and Bad Sisters, plays Alex, a divorced woman in her fifties trying to rediscover love and her sex life while caring for her ailing parents and a son who is soon expected to become independent. Aran plays her son, 18-year-old Ruair\u00ed, and through his character, the series explores a generation on the cusp of adulthood, at an age when young people are expected to have more and more answers, even though they are still searching for them.<\/p>\n

Related: Films you must watch in your twenties<\/a><\/p>\n

Ruair\u00ed finds himself in that uncomfortable in-between stage between adolescence and adulthood, with no clear idea of what he should do. Through him, Youth explores what it means for young men to grow up today: their insecurities and loneliness, the pressure to fit predetermined ideas of masculinity, and the endless stream of content the internet serves up as answers to questions they cannot yet put into words. While working on the series, Horgan brought Aran into that part of the process too, asking him to show the team the kinds of videos that actually appear in his peers\u2019 feeds so that Ruair\u00ed\u2019s digital world would feel as close as possible to the one young people know today. Murphy later spoke about how easily he understood his character\u2019s sense of uncertainty. At 19, just as a more serious acting career is beginning, he is close to the threshold the series explores.<\/p>\n

Two more roles are on the way that could change how audiences see him<\/p>\n

War arrives in early October. The new drama from George Kay, creator of Lupin and Hijack, places Aran in a completely different world. Dominic West and Sienna Miller play tech billionaire Morgan Henderson and film star Carla Duval, whose marriage falls apart in a costly, widely publicised divorce. Their private conflict grows into a major legal case and a battle between two London law firms. Murphy plays their teenage son, caught between parents whose problems are no longer confined to the family home but have become matters for lawyers and public scrutiny. After Ruair\u00ed, a young man trying to find his place in the world, this is another role as a teenager navigating adult problems, though in an entirely different setting.<\/p>\n

Related: Films that transformed Robert Pattinson\u2019s career<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll also see Aran on the big screen this year<\/p>\n

Aran will round off his first year in front of a wider audience with the biggest film project of his career so far. Arriving in late October, Klara and the Sun is Taika Waititi\u2019s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro\u2019s novel, with Jenna Ortega playing Klara, an Artificial Friend who becomes part of teenager Josie\u2019s life. Amy Adams, Mija Tharia, Steve Buscemi and Natasha Lyonne also appear in the story of artificial intelligence, friendship and what connects people, while Murphy plays Rick, Josie\u2019s close friend. After two television roles, a move into an adaptation of a Nobel laureate\u2019s work with a cast like this gives him a very different stage and his largest audience yet.<\/p>\n

Related: 5 new Netflix thrillers that will keep you glued to the screen this September<\/a><\/p>\n

In the space of just a few months, we\u2019ll see him in three very different projects, working with creators and casts that would make for an impressive start for any young actor. Youth will probably be the first title through which much of the audience gets to know him, but the rest of the year could reveal far more about the acting career he wants to build. His resemblance to his father has brought him considerable media attention, but these roles give him a chance to hold on to it for entirely different reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve never been particularly interested in the endless conversations and debates about Hollywood nepo babies, but the internet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-628220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}