“Copy and Paste” of His Dad: The Rising HBO Star Whose Resemblance to His Oscar-Winning Father Is Going Viral — Photos

At only 19, this young actor already has major projects arriving within weeks of one another. One is bringing him to HBO audiences now, another major series is already waiting, and a Taika Waititi film will soon give him his first lead movie role.

This is not his first taste of acting, either. He stepped onto a professional stage at 11, years before the latest interviews, premieres, and cameras began following him around.

One Year Suddenly Became Very Full

After finishing his Leaving Cert, the young actor took a year out to give acting a proper try. Instead of spending that year waiting for opportunity, he ended up with Youth, WAR, and Klara and the Sun arriving close together.

Youth became one of the first projects to put him in front of a much wider television audience. Sharon Horgan also brought him into conversations behind the scenes, asking for his perspective on anxiety, social media, and the manosphere while shaping parts of the young male character.

Then she talked about what happened once he was in front of the camera. Horgan said they had “really got lucky” with the young actor and added, “You literally can’t see acting.”

The compliment came at the beginning of his adult screen career, but the quality Horgan noticed had been mentioned years earlier. Back then, the setting was a stage, the actor was only 11, and almost the entire show rested on him.

His first professional role was not a few lines tucked inside a large cast. It was the kind of job where a child performer had to hold an audience for close to an hour.

He Took on a Role Most Child Actors Never Get

In Hamnet, the young actor played Shakespeare's son in an hour-long production built around child performer. The material took him through grief, death, growing up, and a difficult relationship between a boy and his famous father.

The role did not stay close to home for long. Hamnet later travelled internationally, and by 2019, the young actor had performed in New York, Boston, and Hong Kong.

For all the weight of the material, one of the stories that survived from those performances was much simpler. After coming offstage, he could immediately turn to the Liverpool score and get on with his evening.

His father later remembered watching him move so easily between performing and ordinary life. He admitted to a little envy over how naturally the boy seemed able to stay in the moment and then leave the work behind.

Years later, Horgan was praising that same kind of ease in Youth. By then, however, the young actor was dealing with something his 11-year-old self had never faced on this scale — a growing press tour and a steady stream of new footage online.

That footage soon started another conversation. The first comments had very little to do with Hamnet, HBO, or acting technique.

His Familiar Look Soon Pointed to One Famous Name

Recent footage gave viewers a closer look at his dark hair, blue eyes, and expressions. When he started walking and talking on camera, the comments became much more specific.

Under Instagram post, one person wrote, “Truly a copy and paste wow 😮”, while another added, “He even walks like him 😂”.

The comparisons continued: “Double of his dad” were among the reactions, while another viewer went even further: “He looks more like Cillian Murphy than his dad does.”

That last comment gives away the answer. The young actor is Aran Murphy, the 19-year-old son of Oscar winner Cillian Murphy.

And Aran has now spoken about what comes with that connection. Asked directly whether knowing people would compare his performance and appearance with his famous father made him anxious, he said he barely thought about it while filming.

It became different once the project was ready to go out into the world. In a recent premiere interview, Aran admitted that “anxiety can definitely be the name of the game sometimes” as premieres and publicity made that attention much more immediate.

This Red Carpet Was for His Own Project

At a UK special screening of Youth, Aran arrived in a distressed gray knit, black jeans, and a gold chain. Photos from the appearance became some of the clearest recent images from his first major run of solo publicity.

The setting was different from older family appearances. Aran was not simply accompanying his parents to an industry event — he was there as part of the project being promoted.

A New York premiere followed, giving him another carpet attached directly to Youth. At 19, those events are becoming some of the first public images in which he is appearing primarily as a working actor.

Aran grew up with creativity coming from both parents. Cillian worked on stage and screen, while his mother, Yvonne McGuinness, built her career as a visual artist working across film, performance, collaborative projects, and spatial practice.

The family spent years in London before returning to Ireland. Cillian said he and Yvonne wanted their sons closer to their grandparents and spoke about seeing more confidence in the boys than he remembered having at their age.

But the most useful thing Aran may have carried into acting from his father was not the famous surname or the resemblance everyone is talking about. It was a backstage rule Cillian learned after making one small mistake early in his own career — and it is advice he still passes on to his son as Aran moves onto increasingly bigger sets.

His Dad Passed Down One Very Simple Rule

Cillian has shared piece of acting advice he now passes to Aran, and it began with a costume left on the floor. As a young performer, Cillian once rushed away after a show and dropped his clothes behind him.

An older actor stopped him with the words, “Always, always hang up your costume.” The lesson stayed with Cillian because it reminded him that an actor works alongside costume teams, crews, and many other people whose names may never appear above the title.

Aran is now taking that advice onto much larger sets. After Youth, another HBO and Sky production is already next on the schedule.

The upcoming WAR places Aran in a cast led by Dominic West and Sienna Miller. He will play Gabriel in the HBO and Sky series, which has already been ordered for 2 seasons in an anthology format.

There is little downtime between the projects. Youth arrives on September 20, while WAR follows on October 1.

Before October is over, Aran has another release waiting — and this one changes the size of his role again.

October Brings Another First

Aran also appears in Taika Waititi's Klara and the Sun, scheduled for October 23. The film gives the 19-year-old his first lead role in a feature film.

That puts new projects into a stretch of just over a month. Youth gives him a larger television introduction, WAR places him alongside an established ensemble, and Klara and the Sun moves him into a feature lead.

His screen résumé is naturally still short at his age. What stands out is how quickly several major credits have collected around the same year.

None of those projects requires a long plot explanation to show the difference between them. Aran is moving between comedy, ensemble drama, and a lead film role before his 20th birthday.

There is also a sharp contrast with the year he originally planned. He finished school and gave himself time to test acting, only to find high-profile releases stacked together before that test year was over.

His stage experience makes the rush less sudden than it appears from the outside. Hamnet had already taken him onto international stages years before this first run of HBO premieres.

The Earlier Photos Rarely Put Him in the Center

Older industry photographs often showed Aran beside his parents. One Getty image from an earlier appearance captures Aran with Yvonne, Cillian, and Robert Downey Jr., with the younger Murphy still appearing as part of a family group.

The latest images are arranged differently. At Youth events, Aran is being photographed alone or alongside colleagues because he is part of the cast being introduced to audiences.

That change can be seen clearly at the DGA Theater premiere in New York. The carpet belonged to Youth, and Aran was one of the people there to represent it.

The shift has happened without a long period of celebrity exposure in between. Many viewers are meeting Aran now, even though almost 8 years separate his first professional role from his current HBO work.

“Horgan wasn’t discovering a complete newcomer. By the time Youth came along, Aran had already spent years learning how to hold a stage.” Aran had already carried a stage production, toured internationally, and returned to acting again after school.

Now the audience is catching up quickly. September and October alone give viewers several chances to see him work.

The Hardest Part of Youth Wasn’t What He Expected

For a role filled with anxiety, anger, and some fairly heavy material, Aran said the part that caught him off guard was the comedy. In a new interview about Youth, he admitted that being surrounded by so many funny people made it difficult to keep a straight face.

He was breaking often enough that he would go home telling himself he had to stop ruining takes by laughing. Watching Sharon Horgan juggle writing, producing, and acting also pushed him to work harder, with Aran saying he felt he had to raise his own level.

And despite several major projects arriving close together, Aran is not talking as if the next stage of his career is already guaranteed. In a recent interview, he said simply, “I’m still auditioning,” adding that he does not yet know what comes next.

His year away from school could easily have produced a few auditions and a decision about what to do next. Instead, it produced enough work to take him from an HBO comedy to another major series and then into his first lead feature.

The next step is already happening in public. Premieres that once would have been family occasions are now part of Aran's own working calendar.

And by the end of October, audiences will have had far more than viral clip through which to know him.

This Is Only His First Busy Season

At 19, Aran still has a short résumé, and there is no need to stretch it into a full biography. What he already has is an unusually concentrated few weeks of new work.

Youth has brought the first major press run, WAR follows almost immediately, and Klara and the Sun gives him his first lead film role. Those releases come after a professional start that reaches back to age 11 rather than beginning with his latest HBO appearance.

For now, Aran is still in the first stretch of being widely recognized as a working actor. But the year he set aside simply to try acting has already given him much more than a trial run.