Cillian Murphy has emerged as star with Danny Boyle’s ‘28 Days Later’, shortly followed by ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’, ‘Cold Mountain’. He went on to give standout performances in ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘Red Eye’ as well as Ken Loach’s ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’. He teamed up with Boyle again for ‘Sunshine’.
- What have you done after Sunshine?
That was a long tough shoot. I took a lot of time off and then I went into this little movie called 'Watching the Detectives' which I shot in New York in the summer with Lucy Liu. It's a comedy directed by Paul Soter and then I've just finished a play, ‘Love Song’, in The West End of London directed by John Crowley. So that's what I've been up to.
- Are you just not thinking about what you have to do next? Are you just going with your instincts and finding what pleases you?
What challenges me rather than what pleases me. That's always how I've operated. I try and insist on diversity and again, doing stories that are worth telling.
- You’re committed fully with these parts. does that transfer when you go home? Does your wife look at you and wonder who you are on any given day?
No, she knows who I really am - she's knows me from before I was an actor - but I do think that it takes something from you. There is an absence when you're making a movie. You're absent physically because you're working every God given hour with them, and emotionally I think it does take something from you when you come home.
- Especially when you only have a weekend off, right?
Or a day off. That's generally how much you have off and even then you're just working to prepare for the following day. It's quite exhausting, but I'm loathe to complain about it because this is what I've wanted to do all my life.
Not all my life, but I've acquired this passion for a job and it's wonderful to get to do it, but it can be exhausting.
- So when people say that you're a star or a rising star, what does that mean to you exactly? That you're just doing well in your career or is it something to be avoided?
I tend not to think about any of that stuff. I just do my work and judge myself on my work.
- When you were doing 'love songs' in the West End was your name above the title?
[Laughs] Yeah, but so was all the other cast members.
- How different is it to do a play from a movie? The play is done eight times a week and everything is contained.
I mean, when I started acting that's what I did exclusively for four years. I just did theatre. For me it's all about learning, really, and every time you do a job it's learning.
In theatre I think that there's a much more sort of accelerated rate of learning because you're doing an entire narrative and an entire character arch and an entire sort of journey live onstage and there's this sort of communion with an audience that you don't get in movies.
It's about acting in moments and it takes a long, long time. So theatre is very, very important to me and to be acting every night and twice a day on Thursdays and Saturdays for three months you can only be a better actor out of that, regardless of how good or bad the show is, I think.
- Do you think that movies or theatre have an opportunity to change people's lives as well as being able to tell interesting stories?
I think that our job is to entertain, first and foremost, and if you entertain and you engage then you have a chance to put across a message. You engage and you're entertained and you're emotionally connected to these characters.
You invest in them. So that's the idea, that you say something intelligent with your film, but also in an engaging way.
- How many people don't know how to pronounce your name in this country?
Ah, that's kind of the problem is decreasing, but you know, it's an unusual name, I guess you just have to correct people. It's a hard C.
- Does it mean something?
It was a saint, like most Irish names, they come from saints.
- What was he the saint of?
I don't know. Most of them, there weren't career saints. They just did good stuff.
- Does he have a saint's day?
No he doesn't have a saint's day, no I don't think so. Well he's dead, like what do you? He was a monk I think.
- He was an Irish saint.
Yeah.
- Do you stay in character a lot?
I don't think I find it quite hard talking about that whole method thing, and retrospectively, you can see how a character affects you. My wife can see always how a movie, how a part affects me. Of course, because she has to live with that.
But it's not a conscious thing, I don't go around being in character all the time. Some actors need to do that, and that's fine. It's a means to an end, you know.
- Do you have a career game plan? Like one for me, one for the career?
I don't know. Do you have game plans in your careers? Nobody has. Nobody sits down going, and on the twenty third of December we're gonna take over the world. Nobody does, I don't think about those things.
If it happens, it happens, all of these projects represents the challenges, they've all been amazing directors, and some have succeeded, some haven't succeeded, but it's not like ticking boxes and going right, if I do this, this will allow me to do this.
- Is there a director you'd like to work with that you haven't yet?
Oh there's many, many, but I couldn't there's no point.
- Any role that you want to play?
Somebody asked me this before, I don't know if they're gonna ever make a movie about Chet Baker, if they do, I'd love to play Chet Baker, but I don't know if they are.
- How did your life change once 28 Days Later became a hit?
Well I suppose, slightly more people could pronounce my name. [laughs] No, yeah, it's a lot about recognition, isn't it, and I'm fully cognizant of the fact that like Hollywood is about commerce and art, and if you, well it's an uncomfortable mixture of the two, but if people aren't gonna put you in a movie unless people know who you are, and if your movie made eighty million dollars, then people will go oh hey, we'll put him in a movie!
It isn't necessarily immediately about the performance, you know. So yeah, that was great, and what that meant is that you get to read scripts and you get to meet people that you wouldn't have done in the past, perhaps.
- You don't have any problem doing American films, instead of sticking to Irish films?
The thing about it is, it's very simple, you're doing roles, and if some of them fall within the American studio system, that's fine, do you know what I mean. It's about a role, that's why you do it. I think it's foolish for an actor to go, learns nothing, and I'm just doing independent films, I'm an independent actor. Yeah but, if it's a good film, it doesn't matter where it comes from, do you know what I mean?
And I don't care who perceives me, as always selling out because he's doing a studio picture. It's not just doing a film back home in Cork, do you know what I mean. So for me, the whole thing is you should be diverse in your choices, I go and do theatre and then I go on and do a studio picture in Hollywood, and to me that's the beauty of being an actor, that you should be able to do that, you know.
And I think to disallow yourself to make a studio picture, because some of the best films are made within the American studio system, I think there's a load of rubbish being made as well, but some of the best stuff comes from within the American system.
- Are you achieving your goals, did you want to be world famous?
It's great to be in a hit film. Like I never thought, you know, you get picked up in a limo, that's absurd! And all that stuff, but the fame thing, that's never a goal, you know, and I never have had goals, I just want to improve, and I know it sounds boring and it's kind of like I could copy, but I do just want to improve as an actor, and if I can leave one film behind that's something that affects somebody, if that's my legacy, that's absolutely fine, just one thing that I can leave behind.
- Do you still live in Ireland?
No, I live in London now.
- Because?
Well because of proximity to my family and friends in Cork, and London is a world capital, I love living in London.
- You don't want to live in L.A.?
I don't need to live in Los Angeles, it's not because I don't want to, I just don't need to, practical reasons. Also I'd be tremendously far away from my family, I'd never see them, so you know, a lot of movies get made out of London, like I'm over here and I do a movie, and there's no need to... you know, people make the choice earlier on in their careers, not sort of after you're somewhat established, there's no need to move.
- Have you been in any tabloids, any nasty rumours?
I've never once been in that style of paper.
- Are you that boring?
Yeah! And I hope to keep it that way, if people want to think I'm boring, they can write it all. I know myself, I'm not a boring person, all my friends are not, but like I think you have a lot more... I think actors abdicate a lot of responsibility about getting into papers.
If you don't do the things that people want to see in papers, then you won't be in the papers. So it's an easy equation for me.
- What kind of kid were you growing up, well behaved?
I did my teenage thing, yeah, but it's a small town, Cork, middle class family, teachers, parents.
- Your parents were teachers?
Yeah, long line of pedagogues, my granddad was a headmaster and teacher.
- Why law?
I don't know. There were very few lectures. There was no outlet for creativity within it unless you're using the legal language to find a loophole, and I didn't like it, you know.
- How did your wife enter your life?
She's an artist, so.
- A painter?
No, it's more installation and video art and stuff like that.
- So she understands the craziness of your life, the twenty four hour plane trip?
Yeah, she understands it, I think. It's like ten years together, so she's been there from the start.
- She knew you when?
Yeah. My life hasn't changed in any way, really, I still have the same friends, we go to the same places. But it is very important to have somebody like that I think, you know.
- It grounds you.
It does, and I think if I was working at this level when I was eighteen, I'd say it would've caused a different reaction, but now, you know, I'll be thirty next year, I've been around for a few years, you hopefully have a slightly more mature outlook.
- You're not giddy.
Yeah, and you know, you're unimpressed by things, or you realize that it's a facade, do you know what I mean.
- What's your favourite film?
I do have a favourite film, a film that many people haven't seen, a film called 'Scarecrow.' It's my favourite movie.
- Why that one?
It's [Al] Pacino's performance, and [Gene] Hackman's performance, but Pacino can make you cry in that movie. It's come out on DVD, Warner Brothers sent me it on DVD. So beautiful. It's a road movie, kind of, the two of them are like tramps, kind of down and out you know, travelling across America to give a lamp to his son.
And there's a scene at the end with Pacino in the fountain, and like I saw it, I actually got that, here's a story for you... I got that out, we went on Halloween to go to a scary movie, and the guy gave us 'Scarecrow' by mistake, and myself and my brother, and we watched it one night.
- How old were you?
Fifteen or sixteen.
- What's the end scene in the fountain?
Pacino just kind of has this breakdown, and I've never seen anything like it, in all his performances, and nobody talks about it. Although I read Gene Hackman said it was one of his favourite films.
- They must have made a great team.
Oh, it's just beautiful, their first opening sequence is just the two of them hitching on the side of the road, and they're like crossing each other, it's fucking brilliant.
- So you'd like to have a movie like that.
And I mean, just one, if it could affect one person, or gets them being an actor or a director or whatever, you know.
- So you were trying to rent a horror film? What are some of your favourite horror films?
I don't really like horror films that much. I like 'The Shining' though, it's a masterpiece. That scared the shit out of me too, when I was a kid. I don't particularly watch them now.
- What does 'The Scarecrow' do for you?
The film? I just found it profoundly moving, and I was just blown away by the fact that it had such an effect on me, I had no connection or reference for these characters. And nothing much happens in the film, they're just travelling. And Al Pacino is brilliant, he's just amazing, and it's a much different Al Pacino, soft and kind of cuddly.
- Back then, it didn't matter so much about box office results.
My parents went to it on a date.
- What's your wife's name, does she have a gallery in the U.S.?
No, uh, Yvonne McGuinness. She's exhibiting at home.
- Is it true you had to skip your wedding to meet Wes Craven for ‘Red Eye’?
Here's the story about the wedding! Look, it's a good story, right, and I did fly over, it was the registry office, I was getting married, and the wedding happened like months down the line, I wasn't leaving my bride on the altar. Like, when's he gonna be here?
- So it wasn't the wedding?
I did the registry office part was the day after I come back from America, so it was just like sign a book, and then the wedding happened like in August, the wedding happened way down the line. I flew over, because what happened was I flew over to meet him, and we met, and you know that revolving restaurant over there? And we met there, and then it was like forty minute lunch, and then I got on a plane and went home.
- Is that because you were getting married?
Because I had to be at the registry office to sign the book.
- So, how did you become an actor?
I didn't start acting till I was like 20 and I was playing in bands trying to be a musician and I foolishly was attempting a degree in law and abandoned that quite quickly. I saw in Cork I was always into movies and I saw a play in Cork they did the play itself Clockwork Orange in a nightclub and it was completely cool and sexy and brilliant.
I knocked on the door of the theatre and asked them for an audition and they gave me a crack. In a play called 'Disco Pigs' which I did and then they made that into a movie, so that's the story in a nutshell.
-Were you in the film version of 'Disco Pigs?'
Yeah. Yeah, there was a hiatus, there was like two years between it being made into a film.
- Your band was called?
Sons of Mr. Greengenes.
- Do you do frank zappa covers?
No, that's a Frank Zappa song, that's where we got the name, yeah, so we were big - are you a Zappa fan? Cool. I was a big Frank Zappa fan, yeah. But we didn't play covers, we played our own stuff.
-Were you the singer?
Yeah, singer and played guitar, yeah. Who knew it would all lead to this. Pretty funny, isn't it?
-Do you have a favourite music concert to go to?
I saw Al Green, he's incredible.
Watching The Detectives is out on DVD now.
Cillian Murphy has emerged as star with Danny Boyle’s ‘28 Days Later’, shortly followed by ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’, ‘Cold Mountain’. He went on to give standout performances in ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘Red Eye’ as well as Ken Loach’s ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’. He teamed up with Boyle again for ‘Sunshine’.
- What have you done after Sunshine?
That was a long tough shoot. I took a lot of time off and then I went into this little movie called 'Watching the Detectives' which I shot in New York in the summer with Lucy Liu. It's a comedy directed by Paul Soter and then I've just finished a play, ‘Love Song’, in The West End of London directed by John Crowley. So that's what I've been up to.
- Are you just not thinking about what you have to do next? Are you just going with your instincts and finding what pleases you?
What challenges me rather than what pleases me. That's always how I've operated. I try and insist on diversity and again, doing stories that are worth telling.
- You’re committed fully with these parts. does that transfer when you go home? Does your wife look at you and wonder who you are on any given day?
No, she knows who I really am - she's knows me from before I was an actor - but I do think that it takes something from you. There is an absence when you're making a movie. You're absent physically because you're working every God given hour with them, and emotionally I think it does take something from you when you come home.
- Especially when you only have a weekend off, right?
Or a day off. That's generally how much you have off and even then you're just working to prepare for the following day. It's quite exhausting, but I'm loathe to complain about it because this is what I've wanted to do all my life.
Not all my life, but I've acquired this passion for a job and it's wonderful to get to do it, but it can be exhausting.
- So when people say that you're a star or a rising star, what does that mean to you exactly? That you're just doing well in your career or is it something to be avoided?
I tend not to think about any of that stuff. I just do my work and judge myself on my work.
- When you were doing 'love songs' in the West End was your name above the title?
[Laughs] Yeah, but so was all the other cast members.
- How different is it to do a play from a movie? The play is done eight times a week and everything is contained.
I mean, when I started acting that's what I did exclusively for four years. I just did theatre. For me it's all about learning, really, and every time you do a job it's learning.
In theatre I think that there's a much more sort of accelerated rate of learning because you're doing an entire narrative and an entire character arch and an entire sort of journey live onstage and there's this sort of communion with an audience that you don't get in movies.
It's about acting in moments and it takes a long, long time. So theatre is very, very important to me and to be acting every night and twice a day on Thursdays and Saturdays for three months you can only be a better actor out of that, regardless of how good or bad the show is, I think.
- Do you think that movies or theatre have an opportunity to change people's lives as well as being able to tell interesting stories?
I think that our job is to entertain, first and foremost, and if you entertain and you engage then you have a chance to put across a message. You engage and you're entertained and you're emotionally connected to these characters.
You invest in them. So that's the idea, that you say something intelligent with your film, but also in an engaging way.
- How many people don't know how to pronounce your name in this country?
Ah, that's kind of the problem is decreasing, but you know, it's an unusual name, I guess you just have to correct people. It's a hard C.
- Does it mean something?
It was a saint, like most Irish names, they come from saints.
- What was he the saint of?
I don't know. Most of them, there weren't career saints. They just did good stuff.
- Does he have a saint's day?
No he doesn't have a saint's day, no I don't think so. Well he's dead, like what do you? He was a monk I think.
- He was an Irish saint.
Yeah.
- Do you stay in character a lot?
I don't think I find it quite hard talking about that whole method thing, and retrospectively, you can see how a character affects you. My wife can see always how a movie, how a part affects me. Of course, because she has to live with that.
But it's not a conscious thing, I don't go around being in character all the time. Some actors need to do that, and that's fine. It's a means to an end, you know.
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