Cillian Murphy detonates an emotional bomb in Small Things Like These trailer

Small Things Like These—Cillian Murphy’s first role since winning Best Actor at the Oscars earlier this year—might never have happened without Oppenheimer. Murphy recently told Vanity Fair that he had his eye on the project, an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s acclaimed 2020 novel of the same name, before he ever stepped foot in Christopher Nolan’s vision of Los Alamos. It was there that he pitched the script, written by Enda Walsh, to his co-star Matt Damon, who “loved” it. “I remember saying that it’s a different film, but it would share some thematic crossover with Manchester By The Sea, which Matt also produced,” Murphy recalled. “It was like I was pitching between Manchester By The Sea and Doubt.” Damon and Ben Affleck’s Artists Equity signed on as producers and everything came together “remarkably quick” from there.

The film, which just released its first trailer, is a notable change of pace for Murphy from last year’s massive blockbuster. The actor goes back to his Irish roots as Bill Furlong, a coal merchant confronted with “his past and the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church,” according to the film’s logline. The 1980s-set story was loosely inspired by the Magdalene Laundries, a dark chapter in Irish history in which Catholic nuns isolated and abused single, pregnant women until the final facility closed in 1996.

“It’s so seemingly simple, but it’s incredibly complex, actually, when you look at it,” Murphy said of the story. “It’s massively intertwined with Irish people, our history and our culture and trauma and all of that stuff. I feel that sometimes art is a gentler way of addressing or confronting that than, perhaps, government reports or academic papers.”

Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants helms the film, which also stars Emily Watson, Ciarán Hinds, and Michelle Fairley. It premieres in theaters November 8.