Cillian Murphy Plays a Reform School Teacher Grappling with His Mental Health in First Look at Netflix's “Steve”
The Oscar winner, who is the son of two educators in real life, will also star in an upcoming 'Peaky Blinders' movie
Robert Viglasky/Neflix Cillian Murphy in Netflix's Steve (2025)
NEED TO KNOW
- Cillian Murphy stars in the first look at Steve, as a teacher who "fights to protect the school’s integrity and impending closure" while "grappling with his own mental health"
- Based on Max Porter's 2023 novella Shy, the upcoming drama costars Jay Lycurgoa as Shy and is directed by Tim Mielants, from a screenplay by Porter
- Steve is in select theaters this September, and streaming Oct. 3 on Netflix
Netflix has released a first-look image of the Oppenheimer actor in the upcoming drama based on Max Porter's 2023 novella Shy, with Murphy in the movie's title role as Steve and Jay Lycurgo as Shy.
Directed by Belgian filmmaker Tim Mielants (Small Things Like These) from a screenplay by Porter, Steve also stars Tracey Ullman, Simbi Ajikawo and Emily Watson.
"Set in the mid-'90s, Steve is a reimagining of Max Porter's Sunday Times bestseller Shy. The film follows a pivotal day in the life of headteacher Steve (Murphy, 49) and his students at a last-chance reform school amidst a world that has forsaken them."
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"As Steve fights to protect the school’s integrity and impending closure, we witness him grappling with his own mental health," the synopsis continues.
It concludes, "In parallel to Steve’s struggles, we meet Shy (Lycurgo, 27), a troubled teen caught between his past and what lies ahead as he tries to reconcile his inner fragility with his impulse for self-destruction and violence."
Murphy, Alan Moloney and Tina Pawlik make up the producing team for Steve, with Porter also on as executive producer.
Steve is a bit of an art-imitating-life moment for Murphy, who is the son of two educators in real life (with his mother as a French teacher and his father working for the Irish Department of Education).
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As for his career post-Academy Awards win, Murphy has appeared in Mielants' Small Things Like These in 2024, and is also slated to reprise his TV role of Thomas "Tommy" Shelby in the upcoming Peaky Blinders film treatment.
28 Years Later director Danny Boyle — who has worked with Murphy multiple times in the past, including on 2002's 28 Days Later — revealed in interviews with IGN and IndieWire that Murphy, who starred as Jim in the original film, will also appear in 2026's The Bone Temple.
"He is in the second one. I shouldn't give away too much. I'll get killed," Boyle, 68, joked to IGN, while referencing the new trilogy crafted by himself and writer Alex Garland.
Steve is in select theaters this September, and streaming Oct. 3 on Netflix.
