upworthy

film

Celebrity

Cillian Murphy gave a refreshing response when asked if he had FOMO about 'The Odyssey'

Introverts are taking his "ROMO" answer and running with it.

JoshPopov/Wikimedia Commons

Cillian Murphy at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025.

Actor Cillian Murphy has been in dozens of films and television shows, but is perhaps best known for playing the lead roles in the movie Oppenheimer and the British TV drama Peaky Blinders. The Irish native is also known to be a favorite casting choice for director Christopher Nolan, playing roles in six of his 12 films, including Batman Begins, Inception, and Dunkirk.

The upcoming Nolan film epic The Odyssey is a notable exception, however. When a Variety interviewer asked Murphy if he was feeling any FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) over not being involved in the project, his response made waves.

"No, I have ROMO—Relief Of Missing Out," he said, laughing. "No, I can't wait to see it. If any director in the world could tackle The Odyssey, it's gonna be Christopher Nolan. I'm so excited to see it."

Murphy's response resonated with so many people who experience ROMO more often than FOMO. Introverts, in particular, ran with the acronym, which perfectly encapsulates the relief they feel when a party or other social event gets canceled; or even sometimes the relief of not being invited to a social event in the first place.

In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Murphy clarified the ROMO comment:

"What I meant to say was it's a real gift to go and watch Chris' films without having the terrible burden of looking at my own stupid head," he said. "Do you know what I mean?"

@colbertlateshow

ROMO > FOMO. #Colbert #CillianMurphy #ChristopherNolan #FOMO #TIFF

The answer was refreshing in a world where ambition is celebrated and expected, especially when fame is involved. Many might assume that an actor would always want to be a part of every big thing, but there's a cost that comes with being part of a major project. One, it's a lot of work, and two, you never get to just enjoy it as an audience member.

Murphy isn't the only actor who doesn't like to see his own face on screen. In fact, there are some actors who refuse to watch their own films, with some saying they prefer the process to the product, and others saying seeing themselves on screen creates too much self-consciousness.

People might assume that in order to act you have to be an extrovert, but a surprising number of actors are actually introverts. People might also assume that fame is something all actors seek, but that's not accurate, either. Murphy is famously averse to fame, desiring to focus on the acting work itself. Despite his best efforts to avoid it, fame found him anyway.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Ironically, Murphy's ambivalence toward the spotlight makes him all the more relatable, so his ROMO comment hits home. Introverts everywhere felt seen by it, especially since he seems sincerely relieved to be able to just enjoy a Christopher Nolan movie without all the stress and pressure of being a part of one. It must be weird to be an actor who gets cast in major films but who really doesn't want the glitz and glamour that comes along with it. There's a strange irony in simply loving the craft of acting, but knowing that the better you are as an actor, the more famous you'll become, even if you don't want to.

No wonder Murphy feels relieved to not be in The Odyssey. And now he's launched a viral meme—ROMO—inadvertently putting the spotlight on himself in a whole other way (but at least this spotlight captures a bit of his true self and not the characters people mistake him for).

Thank you, Cillian Murphy, for giving those of us who feel ROMO more often than FOMO a term of our own.

From Your Site Articles
celebrity
CelebrityPop Culture
Movies

Guillermo del Toro recalls his desperate, death-defying police chase to finance 'Cronos'

“I was so broke.”

TIFF; Photo credit: Canva

Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro recounts the lengths he went through to finance his first movie.

In a video from 2001 that’s resurfaced and is warming hearts across social media, Oscar-winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro recounts the extraordinary, almost comical lengths he went to finance his debut 1993 feature, Cronos—including what he refers to as “one of the most pathetic hot pursuits in the history of mankind.”

The clip, shared by the Toronto International Film Festival, shows del Toro explaining the non-traditional methods he had to resort to in order to finance Cronos, a quirky vampire flick which Roger Ebert described as “the stuff of classic horror films… [combined] with colorful Latin magic realism.” At the time, no one but the then 29-year-old director believed in the project, forcing del Toro to mortgage his house and sell his beloved car to scrape together the rest of the budget for the film, which totaled roughly $2 million.

“I was so broke,” del Toro recounts with a laugh.



“I was on the way to deliver my van to the car dealership where they were going to put it up for sale. And, for anyone who saw that movie, [I had] the giant gears from inside the clock in my van... and I was driving, I realized that I didn’t have the money to bribe a policeman. I had just passed a red light, and the cop was chasing me, and I said, 'I don’t have the money to bribe him, I’m going to have to escape.” - Guillermo del Toro


In Guadalajara, where del Toro was, and in Mexico at large, there’s a culture of “la mordida,” which translates to “the bite.” Colloquially, it's a term that refers to the common practice of bribing police officers, which is widely recognized as an aspect of daily life and as an informal way to resolve minor infractions, such as traffic violations. In a survey from 2023, over 20% of respondents in Mexico said that they were asked or required to pay a bribe to police officers.

“So, in comes one of the most pathetic hot pursuits in history of mankind,” continues del Toro. “A guy with an old van and huge gears, and a cop in a very crappy police car.” He goes on to explain that, despite these extreme sacrifices, he never recovered the money. “I mean, I did get a career, I did get to do other movies, but I lost a quarter of a million dollars out of my own pocket,” he describes. “And back then, the interest [at] the bank was 110%.”


From Your Site Articles
filmmaking
MoviesPop Culture
Movies

How the unscripted hand flex in 'Pride and Prejudice' became an iconic romantic moment

This subtle, two-second scene has had women swooning for 20 years.

Focus Features/YouTube

Mr. Darcy's hand flex packs a huge romantic wallop.

When we think of romantic moments in film, some classic scenes come to mind. Billy Crystal yelling his love at Meg Ryan on New Year's Eve in When Harry Met Sally. The much-spoofed "I'm flying" scene in Titanic. The cheesy-but-effective "You had me at hello" line in Jerry Maguire. We watch romantic movies for precisely these interactions that allow us to live vicariously through the characters and feel the chemical rush of falling in love.

Romantic scenes generally include a declaration of love, a passionate embrace or kiss, or some other overt expression of affection and desire. But one romantic scene that involves none of those things has become an iconic fan favorite despite it just being a brief close-up shot of a hand.

The "hand flex" from Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice says more in two seconds than many entire scenes do, which is what makes it so powerful. Some people even call it the sexiest non-sex scene in cinema.

In the scene, Mr. Darcy (played by Matthew MacFadyen) briefly takes Elizabeth Bennett's (played by Keira Knightley) hand to help her into a carriage. At this point in the story, the two characters have been prickly toward one another after getting off on the wrong foot, though their attraction is becoming palpable. For the quickest of moments, their hands touch and their eyes meet, and there's an unspoken flash of recognition. Then, as Darcy walks away from the carriage, he flexes his hand—literally for two seconds—and despite it being the slightest gesture that no one would even notice in real life, it speaks volumes about what he's feeling.

Chemistry. Electricity. Longing. Tension. It's all right there in his outstretched fingertips.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Director Joe Wright shared with PEOPLE how the scene came about.

"It wasn't in the script, but that was an important moment in the book," Wright said. "This sudden realization, as they were parting, of what they meant to each other or the kind of disturbance they caused in each other."

Wright said the hand stretch was an improvised move by MacFadyen's, though MacFadyen has said that Wright was the one who initially noticed him doing it.

""Our bodies are so much smarter than our minds often," Wright told PEOPLE. "Although their conscious minds are fighting against each other, their bodies are two magnets drawn to each other. As they touch, even that little hand lifting helping her, which is pure etiquette of the period, somehow creates this kind of electronic shock wave through them both, and he has to shake it away."

pride and prejudice, mr. darcy, elizabeth bennett, film, love scenePride And Prejudice GIF by Working TitleGiphy

Those electrical pulses of sheer chemistry are visceral when they happen in real life, and in that simple stretching of his fingers we can all feel it. Ironically, however, Wright had been disappointed with that day's filming, feeling like he hadn't captured what he hoped to in the scene.

"It had been a gloomy day when we shot it," Wright told PEOPLE. "I felt like I hadn't conveyed what I wanted to, and it's odd and gratifying to find that we told our story, and people have responded. Because on the day, I thought, 'Oh no, we didn't get it. It was rubbish. It didn't work.' Now, people are still posting it. It's odd and really nice."

hands, scene, pride and prejudice, hand scene, mr. darcy, film Pride & PrejudiceGiphy

Imagine thinking that scene hadn't worked. So many people really do doubt themselves more than they should, eh? As people's commentary makes clear, the scene is perfection.

"This is my favourite minute of acting from all the films I've seen over my 57 years."

"That's it. This is more intimate than other scenes from romance movies."

"I'm watching this movie for the first time (shocker i know), and this scene is so intensely romantic it's crazy—more intimate than full body contact. I think it's because of how they filmed it, all close-up shots."

"Like an electric current ran from her to him and the only way he could express what teaching her means is that hand-flex. That’s how you tell a whole story with one gesture. Swoooonniing."

"Tell me you want me without saying a word. This IS most women's dreams."

"I always come back to this scene IT SHOOOK ME."

"This scene has its own separate fan base."

Fans can see the hand flex on the big screen for the film's 20th anniversary as it will be re-released in select theaters on April 20, 2025. It's worth a trip to the movie theater, as the 2005 Pride & Prejudice has a gorgeous aesthetic that is enhanced on a larger screen. Joe Wright really did know what he was doing with this film from start to finish, hand flex and all.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

From Your Site Articles
movies
MoviesPop Culture
Pop Culture

Emma Thompson explains what made the bedroom scene in “Love Actually” so heart wrenching

It wasn’t just that Alan Rickman had broken her heart.

STUDIOCANAL/YouTube

Emma Thompson's bedroom scene in "Love Actually" is a performance for the ages.

It's been over 20 years since Alan Rickman broke Emma Thompson's heart by buying that little office tart a necklace in "Love Actually," and some of us still haven't forgiven him. With its overlapping love stories set during Christmastime, the film has become a holiday classic, despite some controversy on whether or not it's actually any good. Some people love it, some people hate it, but no one can deny that Thompson gives an Oscar-worthy performance in one utterly heart-wrecking scene.

Of the eight "Love Actually" relationships, Harry and Karen (Rickman and Thompson, respectively) is the one that gives the film some serious gravitas. While other characters are pining or shooting their shot with varying levels of success, Harry is pulling a mid-life crisis affair with a modelesque coworker while Karen shuffles their children to and fro and keeps Harry's life running smoothly. We see him lie, we see her start to suspect, but the scene where she opens her Christmas present from Harry—a Joni Mitchell CD, not the necklace she had found hidden in his coat and thought was for her—is when we see Thompson's acting strengths in full view. Like, phew.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

What's so striking about the scene, however, is that it's not dramatic in a typical way. There's no external conflict happening—it's just Thompson excusing herself from the family to emotionally process what she's just discovered in secret. We see and feel her heartbreak—it's so visceral—but that's not what makes the scene so powerful. Heartbreak happens all the time in movies. As Thompson explains in an interview with BBC Radio 1, it's the fact that she can't actually react the way she wants to that pulls at people's heartstrings so hard.

"I think it's just because everybody's been through something like it," Thompson says. "What I think really gets to them though is that she has to pull herself together. It's not that she's upset. That's, you know, ten a penny. But it's that she has to pull herself together."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

It's true. The conflict in the scene is between her wanting to break down and her wanting to keep her family's Christmas memories happy and intact. She is a devastated wife, but she's also a devoted mother who doesn't want to devastate her kids. We feel the tension between those two roles and the way she swallows up her grief in order to get her kids to their holiday concert right after finding out her marriage isn't what she thought it was.

"I think it’s to do with the fact that we’re required in our lives to repress the things that we’re feeling," Thompson explained on TODAY. "So, you can be hit right between the eyes with some terrible piece of news, but you can’t react immediately because you’ve got your children there. It’s that thing of not showing — that’s why it hurts. That’s why it moves us."

"If she went, 'Oh my God! I thought you were going to give me a necklace! And now you've given it to somebody else,' we would not be moved, you know?" she continued. "We're moved because she just goes, 'I'm not gonna do it.' And then she makes the bed, the bed that sort of suddenly feels so empty of meaning. And then she goes down and goes, 'Hello, everyone! Let's go.' That's why people identify."

And the way she plays it is perfect. Any actor can cry, but it's her crying while trying not to cry and how she shows us her inner emotional turmoil without her ever saying a single word that's impressive.

If you've never seen "Love Actually" and want to see the Harry and Karen story, here are just their scenes.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Some people have asked whether Harry actually physically cheated or not, but "Love Actually" script editor Emma Freud clarified that he did. "DEFINITELY had an affair," she wrote on X in 2015. "I begged richard just to make it a flirtation, but no. the whole way."

And did Harry and Karen stay together in the end? The film doesn't really make it clear, but at the screening Freud answered the question: “They stay together but home isn’t as happy as it once was.” Oof. There's just no non-heartbreaking answer to that question.

This is why we watch films, though, isn't it? To see our humanity reflected back to us? To feel what the characters feel? To have our hearts broken vicariously so we can have a good cry without going through the actual pain ourselves?

People usually watch romcoms for the romance and comedy and happy endings, though. So here's to Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman for giving us one of the most poignant scenes in cinema in one of the most unexpected places.

This article originally appeared last year.

From Your Site Articles
movies
Pop CultureMovies
Trending Stories