On screen, John Murphy has been directed by Oscar-Winner Peter Farrelly and auteurs like Peter Berg. Among his sixty-plus credits, he has co-starred with Bradley Whitford in Valley of the Boom and guest-starred with Matthew Broderick in Painkiller.

On stage, John has appeared in over a hundred plays, working for Vancouver companies like the Arts Club, Bard on the Beach, Touchstone, and many others. He toured his one man show, The Heretic, across Canada and to the Edinburgh Fringe. He has been nominated four times for the Jessie Awards for Best Actor. John has directed 30 theatre productions and written several plays, including True Story, which won the Jessie Award for Best New Play.

John has been acting in Shakespeare’s plays for 40 years, playing the roles of Benedict, Petruchio, Hotspur, Bolingbroke, Jaques, Macduff, Kent, and countless others. He adapted and directed Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure for Vancouver's "Bard on the Beach" Annual Shakespeare Theatre Festival, and Ben Jonson’s Volpone for United Players.

John recently directed This is Our Youth with a cast of students from Railtown Actors Studio and he is currently creating a one-man Hamlet show set to tour across Canada in 2028.