People in stitches at Robert Downey Jr appearing to think Cillian Murphy is a 'niche actor'

In news we didn’t think would appear this week, apparently Robert Downey Jr isn’t too sure about who his co-star is.

When doing the promotional rounds to talk about their upcoming Christopher Nolan movie, Oppenheimer, the Iron Man actor seemingly made a blunder about the celebrity status of fellow actor Cillian Murphy.

Tweeted by user Slytherinus, they garnered over 10 million views by sharing this baffling moment for all to see and interpret.

They captioned the interview moment: “Does he think Cillian’s some kind of C tier niche Irish actor?"

Within the clip, RDJ can be seen sitting beside Murphy as he chats to Extra TV on the Oppenheimer press junket.

Twitter / @slytherinus

He explained to the interviewer: “I think we can feel that about the way that your life changing now as you’re gonna be in front of this huge film and we always have two sets of feelings.

"One is that’s great and maybe I’ll have even more opportunities, and the other is ‘what about my privacy’.”

Having already featured in five previous Nolan hits such as The Dark Knight Trilogy, Dunkirk and Inception, this will mark Murphy's sixth film with the director to date, which might be the reason why fans of Murphy are left scratching their heads.

The video also reached Instagram where other commenters tried to rationalise RDJ’s comments towards the Peaky Blinders star.

Universal Pictures

A user wrote that 'it’s his first lead in a Nolan movie that’s what he is referring to,' which is quite a sensible assumption compared to the rest, as it’s true.

Other comments across Twitter also echoed the same sentiments, confirming that maybe the Sherlock Holmes actor was talking more so about how big this feature was compared to other works his co-star had been in.

Though, others preferred to bicker in the comments section.

One person wrote that: “This is a milestone in Cillian’s career, he’s never played lead in a film of such calibre.

"He’ll get so much more recognition and love than he already has. Downey has nothing but praise for him, don’t act smart and try to twist his words.”

This comment was quickly met with a differing opinion.

They countered: “I would agree with you if he wasn’t explicitly speaking about him as if he’s literally an undiscovered actor and not a significant actor in the industry that has been in countless Nolan films and the lead of a major TV series.”

Murphy is widely known as Nolan’s favourite supporting actor, having met each other in 2003 when doing the casting calls for the Batman Begins (2005) movie in which Murphy landed the role of tormented psychologist Jonathan Crane or The Scarecrow.

But now it seems as though the Irish actor has been bumped up to the lead at long last, as he explained in an interview with The Associated Press.

Murphy first received the phone call from Nolan where the director told him that he wanted him to be his Oppenheimer, which left the actor in disbelief.

He said that he had 'always said publicly and privately, to Chris, that if I’m available and you want me to be in a movie, I’m there'.

"I don’t really care about the size of the part,” he explained. “But deep down, secretly, I was desperate to play a lead for him.”

That wish would soon come true as he readily accepted the role, starring alongside big names like RDJ, Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt and Matt Damon.