Cillian Murphy shares heartfelt pride over teenage son acting performance - see photos

The apple didn't fall far from three when it comes to Cillian Murphy and his youngest son, Aran. 

The Peaky Blinders actor and his wife, Yvonne McGuinness, are proud parents to the 16-year-old and his older brother, Malachy, 17. But they've kept their children mostly out of the spotlight... or so their fans thought.

Aran has chosen to follow in his famous dad's footsteps and has been busy carving out a career as an actor.

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Several years ago, Aran took on the role as Hamnet - Shakespeare's prematurely dead son - and performed on stage in the UK, New York, Boston, and Hong Kong.

MORE: Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy's private home life in Dublin home revealed 

Photos from the predominantly one-man show prove that he bears an uncanny resemblance to his father.

Cillian, 47, applauded Aran's performance, as did The New York Times, and he told the publication: "He was so chilled about it, you know? He would come off stage and ask what the score was in the Liverpool game. And, again, you’re slightly jealous of that! 

"There’s the danger that over analyzing everything can erode the simplicity." Aran has also acted in the Andrew Legge-directed movie Lola.

Little is known about his future projects but Cillian and his family continue to live a low-key life in his home country of Ireland.

They made the decision to leave London eight years ago and he spoke to The Irish Sun about it: "We were in London for 14 years, both our kids were born there and we only came back to Dublin in 2015," he said.

"It's kind of an Irish story to move away, do your thing and come home, that seems to be a common narrative for Irish people. And then we wanted the kids to be Irish."

© Robert Viglasky

He continued: "They were sort of at that age where they were pre-teens, they had very posh English accents, and I wasn’t appreciating that too much so we decided to come back. And you know, parents are at a certain age, it was just a nice time to come home."

Cillian is a family man, which made working on Peaky Blinders that much harder as for almost a decade, he was only home for half of the year at home as he filmed on location.

© Photo: Getty Images

Speaking to GQ, he said: "That work-life balance thing is hard. I have an amazing wife and I couldn't do this without her and her understanding. But it is a struggle. "He continued: "I think it is for any dad whose work takes him away, which it generally does, and which consumes him, which my work does.