Cillian Murphy is one of the most respected young actors in Ireland today. He carefully juggles art-house scripts with more popcorn friendly blockbusters. He certainly has the Midas touch when it comes to picking film scripts, looking over his career there is barely a glitch, his CV is peppered with diverse roles like Danny Boyle's 'Sunshine', Neil Jordan's 'Breakfast On Pluto' and Ken Loach's 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'. He also teams up with Batman director again this summer in 'Inception', which co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio. This month, he appears in 'Perrier's Bounty', the new movie from 'Intermission' scribe Mark O'Rowe. The film, set in the gangster underworld of Dublin also stars Brendan Gleeson and Jim Broadbent. We caught up with Cillian to talk about the new movie and the possibility of appearing in another Batman movie.
Q: What attracted you to Perrier's Bounty?
CM: I knew about this film for quite a while, actually. I did Intermission a few years ago with John Crowley, that was written, also, by Mark O'Rowe and I remember at the time Mark O'Rowe said to me ‘I have this idea for a script about a father and son on the run, with a metaphysical aspect. It's also a road movie and a gangster movie'. Then a few years later, they had raised the money and we just went and made it.
Q: There have been a lot of gangster movies to come out of Dublin in the last few years, why do you think the city lends itself to this kind of film?
CM: That's an interesting question. I don't know if it's so much the city, I think it's more to do with the Irish writers that we have produced over the last ten to fifteen years, people like Conor McPherson [The Actors] and Martin McDonagh [In Bruges]. I think they are very interested in a black humour... The world that most of these films are set in is very much the lower echelons of the crime world, they're bottom feeders. I think that the dark humour of the Irish people inherently suits that kind of film and I think that's probably why. I think Dublin, when it's not on it's best days fits that grimy, hopeless backdrop. To talk about the reason, I think generally it comes from the imagination of these writers - a lot of them have very different voices but tend to be drawn to similar themes.
Q: Could you identify with your character Michael?
CM: Yeah yeah, the laziness of it, the procrastination... I think it's a very good observation of the Irish male in general. When we meet Michael at the start of the film, he's in a bad way. He owes money, he's got a terrible relationship with his family, he's got a stunted relationship with this girl who lives downstairs who he fancies but he's too insecure to do anything about and he's very hungover. And then it starts to get worse. How many times can you knock a man down before he'll stand up and fight is the story with Michael.
Q: Some of the language in the film is very pompous and pretentious, what do you think that adds to the film?
CM: That's really down to Mark O'Rowe, he writes really beautiful language, it's scripted in such a precise way, to do justice to his writing, that it doesn't leave much room for improvising, it's very precise. You picture people on the street using this very high falutin' language [laughs]. It's wonderful. These people are in a pretty hopeless place in the criminal world, but they speak as if they are emperors [laughs]. It's really interesting to talk... particularly characters like Brendan Gleeson's character or Jim Broadbent's character. We went to Canada with this film and we had to explain that people in Dublin don't always talk like that! We're not poetic all of the time, even though we are poets by our nature. So we had to do justice to the writing which is beautiful to speak.
Q: The film is very ‘Dublin' in a lot of ways. How do you hope it will be received outside of Ireland?
CM: Well, as I said, we took it to the Toronto Film Festival and it did very very well. There was a great reaction and people really got into it, so I have high hopes for it because of that. Once people in Cork like it...! [laughs]
Q: How important is the film festival circuit to a film like this?
CM: First of all, I think for Irish film makers, and the Irish film industry in general, that whole world is important. When you make a film, you're making a film that is set in Dublin, but you are not just making it for Dublin, you're making it for the whole world. It's very important to see how it plays and it can only be a good thing for the Irish industry in totality when it's received well.
Q: You have played some pretty sociopathic characters - Johnathan Crane/The Scarecrow in Batman Begins, Jackson Rippner in Red Eye and, to a lesser extent, Pig in Disco Pigs. What draws you to these kinds of characters?
CM: I like the idea of a character under pressure, of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and what that kind of pressure does to the human psyche. That's interesting to me. I have played a few bad guys and obviously they don't have the normal moral framework. That's really what it means to me - to make bold choices and to have a bit of fun. Sometimes it is these kind of characters that tend to be burned into people's memories a bit more.
Q: Staying with Batman Begins, how did you get involved with the project?
CM: I did a screen test for the Bruce Wayne / Batman character, which obviously I didn't get, but director Christopher Nolan liked something about the audition and came to me with the other character and asked would I be interested in playing him. I said ‘absolutely' and that was it!
Q: Did you know that your character was going to be in the sequel?
CM: No I didn't. That happened very close to filming. I think it was about having continuity between the two films so that people would realise that Gotham City is a real place. At the end of Batman Begins the Scarecrow actually escaped so we had to tie up the loose ends and introduce the new villain then. I was delighted to be involved again.
Q: You said that Jonathan Crane / the Scarecrow appeared in The Dark Knight to tie up loose ends, but he is left still at large, would you resume the character for a third Batman film?
CM: I really don't have control over that end of things [laughs]. Who knows if Chris is going to make another one... I have just had the pleasure of working with Chris on another film called 'Inception', just to work with him is a real joy, but I will wait until I get the call I guess! [laughs]
Words - Brogen Hayes
Check out our video chat with Cillian & Brendan Gleeson on Friday
Perrier's Bounty is at Irish cinemas from March 26th