Cillian Murphy Almost Played J. Robert Oppenheimer in a TV Series Ten Years Ago, It's a Good Thing He Didn't

Ten years before Christopher Nolan offered Cillian Murphy the leading role in his epic historical drama Oppenheimer, the actor almost played theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in a series about the atomic bomb titled Manhattan.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Manhattan writer Lila Byock confirmed that Murphy was one of the actors they wanted for the role along with David Bowie and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear). Manhattan showrunner Sam Shaw said, "A thousand percent, Cillian Murphy was on that list," and added:

“We wanted Oppenheimer to feel both like he possessed a certain undeniable charisma, a presence onstage, but also that he was playing a different instrument. He needed to feel alien, or other, in some ways.”

The character ended up being played by Daniel London (Patch Adams) and he starred alongside Rachel Brosnahan, David Harbour, and Neve Campbell.

Manhattan ran for two seasons on the now-defunct network WGN America, and it told a fictionalized account of what took place in the laboratories at Los Alamos, the isolated town in the New Mexico desert where the nuclear weapon was tested and made. The show airied between 2014 and 2015.

Luckily, Murphy didn’t end up getting the role because if he had, he most likely wouldn’t have played the character in Nolan’s film. Everything worked out in the end.