‘Cillian Murphy is humble and a great guy. I couldn’t be happier for him,’ says star’s stylist

The man from the riverside village of Castleconnell is driving down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles as he explains how he became part of Cillian Murphy’s whirlwind Oppenheimer journey, which ended with an Oscar win last Sunday night.

Bromell, who specialises in hair and make-up, has worked with everyone from Taylor Swift to Heidi Klum and was in London when a producer called with an offer of work — he just couldn’t reveal who the talent was.

The minute he heard my accent... we hit it off straight away

“They said the person would like to chat and get to know you first, which I thought was an unusual request, and I liked it,” Bromell recalls. “I got to the set and it was Cillian. The minute he heard my accent — because the whole team was English — we hit it off straight away and we’ve worked together since.”

​Now Murphy’s stylist for almost three years, Bromell says their relationship has developed to “become quite kind of… we love each other. We are brothers. We are sensitive to each other and we have a great relationship, so it’s wonderful”.

Cillian Murphy says he is 'proud to be Irish' after best actor award win

Asked if stylists become more like a friend, Bromell says the role of “the confidant” is key.

“Absolutely, it’s like that,” he adds. “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be working with him. It’s an intimate job, and there has to be trust, so he confides in me. Trust usually happens in time, but for me and Cillian, I was lucky enough that it happened quickly.”

Bromell says stylists need to be a “calming influence” because an actor’s life is “intense”.

“We’re in a room a lot of the time with strangers. There’s a lot of interviewing, there’s a lot of talking about yourself,” he says. “It’s quite emotionally draining at times, so I’m there to kind of support him and to make him laugh and to share a bit of banter.

“I’m always up for a laugh and cracking jokes and he’s very funny himself, so it makes it much more relaxed. I take care of him, we hang out outside of work, we go running together in the gym, that type of thing.”

Before awards ceremonies, Bromell says, the pair want “everything to be calm and relaxed” while getting ready for the red carpet.

“I’m quite into skin preparation, and with him I tend not to use a lot of make-up once the skin is primed and looking really good,” he says. “I’m big into LED therapy, which is really good for calming redness in the skin and making the skin plump and reducing lines. I use Sisley Paris on his skin and a Dyson diffuser for his hair.”

Bromell was at a viewing party in Soho House, west Hollywood, when his friend won the Oscar for Best Actor.

“There were tears. We were all crying and you could see that Cillian was in shock. When he arrived at the party afterwards, I gave him a big hug and he gave me a big hug and he said, ‘We did it! We did it’.

“There has always been a group of us — myself, Cillian and Cillian’s PA Lindsey. We call each other ‘The Julies’.”

After Soho House, “everybody went on to Madonna’s house”, but Bromell is tight-lipped, except to say it was “great craic”.

The next morning, when the pair met again, Bromell says Murphy was still on a high.

“He was saying, ‘I won a bloody Oscar’,” he says.

On Tuesday, they said goodbye as Murphy is off on “a big vacation with his family”.

“He just gave me a hug and we both said, ‘Love you man’, and it was just a really, really beautiful moment. He’s such a great guy. A gentleman and humble. He is a beautiful person inside and out. I couldn’t be happier for him. He deserves it.”