OSCAR-WINNING ACTOR Cillian Murphy has said the “biggest challenge” in filming Small Things Like These was staying “faithful to the book”.

Murphy, 48, plays Bill Furlong in the film, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Claire Keegan, about the Magdalene Laundries.

The film is due to be released in Irish cinemas on Friday, 1 November.

Speaking to the PA news agency on the red carpet at the film’s UK premiere, Murphy said: “We really tried to be faithful to the script itself, or, sorry to the book itself, I should say.

“Because it’s such a beautiful, beautiful, perfect novella.

“And so that was our biggest challenge, I think, was to keep faithful to the book.

“And then we just wanted to tell the story in a gentle, delicate way, leaving enough space for the audience, really, to come into it to find their own way into the stories.”

Cillian Murphy while filming 'Small Things Like These' Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The film follows Furlong who, while working as a coal merchant to support his family, discovers how mothers and babies are being treated by a convent in New Ross, Co Wexford.

From the 18th century, nuns operated laundries across Ireland until the final institution in Sean McDermott Street in Dublin closed in 1996.

Originally aimed at “fallen women”, the laundries’ use was expanded during the 20th century to also include women who had not been pregnant or had entered from children’s homes.

The institutions became notorious for the abuse many women suffered there, with unmarked graves being discovered at one site in the 1990s.

The issue prompted a formal state apology in 2013.

Murphy also narrated a podcast series about the survivors of the Tuam mother and baby homes in 2020.

A Royal Night Out actress Emily Watson and Eileen Walsh, who starred in The Magdalene Sisters, also appeared on the carpet last night.

Eileen Walsh, from left, Cillian Murphy and Emily Watson at premiere of 'Small Things Like These' in London last night Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The event was also attended by The Virgin Queen star Anne-Marie Duff and The Devil Wears Prada actor Stanley Tucci and his wife Felicity Blunt.

Meanwhile, Murphy is reprising his role as gangster Tommy Shelby for the upcoming Peaky Blinders film from creator Steven Knight, with reports that filming is currently taking place in Birmingham, where the TV show is set.

This year Murphy won the best actor award at the Baftas and Oscars respectively for his role in Christopher Nolan’s historical drama Oppenheimer.