Fresh off his Academy Award win for Best Actor, Cillian Murphy has lent his pulverising cheekbones and starkly blue eyes to the iconic fashion house, Versace, for its new campaign – or, as we’d prefer the campaign – Versacenheimer.
“I am thrilled that Cillian is joining the Versace family. He is a truly exceptional actor and totally deserves his Oscar win. He is magnetic and mesmerizing in front of a camera and I loved seeing him bring Versace to life.” Donatella Versace said in a statement.
Versace is far from the first brand or person to pick up on Cillian’s seemingly AI generated good looks. Upon auditioning for the role of Bruce Wayne in 2005’s Batman Begins (his first collaboration with Christopher Nolan), Nolan gave the role to Christian Bale, handing Cillian the role of the bad guy, Scarecrow. However, Nolan was so bewitched by Cillian’s piercing blue eyes that he intentionally had him remove his glasses in nearly every scene he’s in, just to get a cleaner visual on this biological wonder. Specifically, Nolan recalled seeing Cillian’s ‘crazy eyes’ in a photo in the San Francisco Chronicle, and thus began a 20 year working relationship, one that we can only hope is nowhere near finished.
Every Murphy X Nolan collaboration over the years
Batman Begins (2005)
Cillian Murphy played the fear-inducing bad guy, criminal psychologist Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow.
“When we had our first conversation I think both of us knew that you weren’t going to wind up playing Batman,” Nolan said of their first meeting. “But I really wanted to get on set with you, I wanted to get you on film.” We’re happy you did.
The Dark Knight (2008)
This film is universally lauded as delivering one of the best movie villains and most legendary performances of all time from the late, great Heath Ledger, but Cillian’s Scarecrow makes an early appearance only to immediately get his ass kicked by Batman.
Best line from this scene?
“I don’t need help,” Batman.
“Not by my diagnosis,” Scarecrow.
Inception (2010)
The film that sparked a million memes in the early days of that phenomenon, Cillian, or Fischer, plays alongside Leonardo DiCaprio’s Cobb in their endless diving through dreams in hopes of altering the unconscious.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Reprising his role in the third, and final, installment of Nolan’s Batman franchise, Cillian reprises his role for the last time, but his presence is equally anxiety-inducing.
Dunkirk (2017)
Loved by many, misunderstood by others, Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson both hailed this WWII epic as one of, if not the best, films of the 21st century. One can only see the irony of Cillian playing a shell shocked survivor trying to escape the Germans, only to, a few years later, play the man who ended the war.
Oppenheimer (2023)
I mean, what else needs to be said? It’s terrifically bleak, and Cillian deserved all the praise for playing the tortured physicist who, above all, was merely a victim of his own genius.
The official Versace X Cillian Murphy campaign launches on April 3, 2024, and if you see anyone else referring to it as Versacenheimer, just know, you saw it here first.
