Cillian Murphy says shooting Oppenheimer sex scenes with Florence Pugh were 'awkward'

Following the debut of Oppenheimer last weekend, Cillian Murphy has a lot to say about his sex scenes with his co-star Florence Pugh.

When speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald to promote Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster, Murphy revealed that Nolan wrote his sex scenes with Pugh “deliberately” while also dubbing them “f**king powerful”.

“He [Nolan] knew that those scenes would get the movie the rating that it got. And I think when you see it, it’s so f**king powerful,” he told the Australian newspaper.

“And they’re not gratuitous. They’re perfect. And Florence is just amazing,” he continued. 

While his steamy scenes with Pugh may be necessary for the film, Murphy also realizes that filming them is also one of the most “awkward” parts of his job.

“Listen, no one likes doing them,” he told told British GQ.

“They’re the most awkward possible part of our job. But sometimes you have to get on with it,” he continued.

While awkward, the ‘Peaky Blinders’ star also acknowledges that the scenes are “worthwhile” to the story because Pugh’s character Jean Tatlock’s affair with J. Robert Oppenheimer is “key” to the movie.

“[That] is one of the most crucial emotional parts of the film,” Murphy added. “I think they were vital.”

Despite the awkwardness of filming the scenes with Pugh, Murphy had nothing but praise for his ‘Oppenheimer’ co-star. 

Aside from calling her a “f**king phenomenal” actress, he also gushed about her impact on the movie as a whole. 

“She has this presence as a person and on screen that is staggering,” he explained. “The impact she has [in ‘Oppenheimer’] for the size of the role, it’s quite devastating.”

While Murphy may think that his R-rated scenes with Pugh are "perfect," Indian officials are calling them a “scathing attack on Hinduism.”

During the scene in question, Pugh’s character stops intercourse and pulls the  Bhagavad Gita from a shelf before instructing Murphy’s character to read from it.

“I am become Death, destroyer of worlds,” Murphy reads as their characters resume having intercourse. 

In a tweet, Uday Mahurkar, a journalist and government-appointed information commissioner, slammed both Nolan and the movie for using the Bhagavad Gita, which he called “one of the most revered scriptures of Hinduism.”

“We do not know the motivation and logic behind this unnecessary scene on life of a scientist,” wrote Mahurkar. “But this is a direct assault on religious beliefs of a billion tolerant Hindus, rather it amounts to waging a war on the Hindu community and almost appears to be part of a larger conspiracy by anti-Hindu forces.”

Oppenheimer is in theaters now