Cillian Murphy Summer's Baddest Boy by Tim Nasson (8/16/05)
Los Angeles –One look at Cillian Murphy, up close and personal, and you can immediately see why he is so good at being bad – in movies. Cillian, (pronounced in the traditional way, KILL-ian), was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. And he seems to have a little evil in him, which translates well onto the big screen.
Perhaps it’s the masculine, yet at the same time, strikingly feminine features that mesmerize. Or, perhaps, maybe it is the thick and almost indecipherable Irish accent that rolls off his tongue that intrigues. Yet, maybe it’s just Cillian and his big blue eyes that pierce you like a knife when standing close.
Murphy, who was in Los Angeles recently to promote “Red Eye,” Wes Craven’s latest – a psychological thriller – co-starring with Rachel McAdams, took time to sit down and answer questions about his current movie, the success of his other summer movie, “Batman Begins,” and three of his upcoming movies – and everything else in between.
First, “the success of ‘Batman [Begins]’ was not a shock to me, at all,” says Murphy, in that Gallic tongue, which he so easily makes disappear when on screen. “’Batman’ has it all; a great story, a great director, great special effects and a great leading cast. I had no idea, though, that people would be so taken with my character [Dr. Jonathan Crane]. People come up to me telling me that my character gave them nightmares.” Cillian was not even aware of the role of Dr. Crane, at first. Murphy went in and auditioned in the Bat suit for director Christopher Nolan for the lead role – Batman. Alas, he didn’t get it – it went to Christian Bale, who is a few inches talker and easily bulked up to 220lbs. for the role. “But he called me after I lost the role of Batman,” says Murphy, “and offered me the role of the Doctor. How could I refuse?”
Immediately after filming “Batman Begins,” Murphy sped off to begin shooting “Red Eye,” in which he plays another bad guy. He may not be as scary in “Red Eye,” because the script is not as clever and the film itself is not nearly as well put together, but he still has a strong screen presence – and does his job of being creepy very well. "I am pretty much a ‘bad guy’ in the movies,” he laughs. “It’s almost like I have been typecast as the bad guy, even though that’s not the case at all. It just the way the dice have rolled lately.”
In “Red Eye,” Murphy holds his seatmate on a plane, Rachel McAdams, hostage – under the pretense that her father will be killed should she not follow his directions."It was fun, shooting in a fake airplane for a couple of weeks,” recalls Murphy. “And Rachel is just so great to work with, even when you’re job is to scare the shit out of her, make her cry, scream and try to fight me, in a cramped plane toilet.”
Murphy, who is married to an Irish lass, is loving the movie business. “I was supposed to become a lawyer,” he laughs. “That was what my parents wanted of me. They are in education careers and they wanted me, their oldest child, to become a rich and successful man. That lawyer stuff wasn’t for me, though. Ever since I got into acting, which was just by chance, I can’t think of anything else I would rather do.”
Next up for Murphy, the lead in Neil Jordan’s latest movie, “Breakfast On Pluto,” another movie for his “28 Days Later” director, Danny Boyle and “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” for British independent film director Ken Loach.
Those three movies are ready for release in the next few months – giving vegetarian Murphy – a little time off, before he sinks his teeth into his next meaty role.
