Cillian Murphy gives sweet shoutout to wife Yvonne McGuinness in Oscars speech
In the event that your circa Peaky Blinders obsession with Cillian Murphy has been reignited amid Oppenheimer and its ~awards buzz~, it's probably time you meet his wife Yvonne McGuinness. Cillian gave a big shoutout to Yvonne during his acceptance speech for his Oscar for Best Actor at the 2024 ceremony, thanking her and then calling her "my partner in life and art", before going on to thank the couple's children who were also in attendance at the ceremony.
In case you were previously unaware of Yvonne, which is totally fair as the couple usually avoid red carpets together, they've been together for a while now — since 1996, to be exact — so if you're curious to know more about her then here's everything we know about Cillian Murphy's wife, Yvonne McGuinness.
Cillian and Yvonne met riiiiiight at the start of his career
Cillian Murphy was in a play called Disco Pigs in the ’90s — and he met Yvonne around the time they were touring. The year? 1996. Cillian’s vibe? Best described as dreamy.
^ This photo is actually from the early aughts, but whatever.
“That time, making Disco Pigs, was kind of the most important period of my life,” Cillian told The Guardian in 2016. “The people I met there remain my closest friends….They shaped me in terms of my tastes, in terms of what I wanted to do with my life.
"And it was around the same time I met my wife. She came on tour with us. It was so exciting, 20 years ago or whatever it was — we were all just kids, trying to find our way — but such a special, special time.”
They’ve been married for 20 years and have two sons
Cillian and Yvonne got married in 2004 and have two kids Malachy and Aran, born in 2005 and 2007. They usually keep their children relatively — by which I mean completely — out of the spotlight. However, Malachy and Aran did attend the 2024 Oscar's with their parents.
That checks out entirely because Cillian seems very committed to privacy. As he put it back in 2014, “I get the bus, I get the tube, I go to the shop and get the milk and do normal things. I would hate it if that became impossible. As an actor, you’re supposed to be playing real people so it seems essential to live like a normal person.”
Cillian also talked to GQ about balancing his personal and work life, putting much of the juggle down to his partner, saying, “That work-life balance thing is hard. I have an amazing wife and I couldn’t do this without her and her understanding. But it is a struggle.”
Yvonne is a professional artist
According to Yvonne’s website, her work “encompasses film, performance, sculptural and textile elements, sound and writing. She has an interest in embodied experience of place and belonging by staging live, public, interventions and performances which create surreal and dynamic moments of interaction and connection to place, time and communities.”
She was born in Kilkenny, Ireland
Yvonne was born October 12, 1972, and — after a few years in London — lives in Ireland with Cillian and their kids. Oh, and fun fact: Her uncle is the famous politician, John McGuinness.
They don’t tend to do red carpets together
Which is why you didn’t see Yvonne on any pre-SAG-AFTRA strike red carpets. In fact, the only photos of them around appear to be these pap pic from back in 2016:
And then this sneaky photo of them from the 2024 Golden Globes, where she kissed him on the cheek and left lipstick on his face while he was accepting the award for Best Actor – Motion Picture – Drama for Oppenheimer:
Cillian and Yvonne lived apart during Peaky Blinders
Mostly because the studio filmed the show in a different city from where Cillian’s family lived. As the actor put it to The Guardian, there is “zero” thing as a personal life when filming. “It’s cancelled life. You go home to your tiny apartment at the end of the day and you feed yourself for sustenance and you learn the lines for the next day and you try to get as much sleep as you possibly can. Which isn’t much. And then you get up and do it again.”
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