INTERVIEW
“With these guys, you go, ‘They’re terrified’. Josef tries to put on a front and make himself the most practical and determined version of himself he can be,
4BREAKFAST ON PLUTO (2005)
Comedy drama where Cillian plays Patrick ‘Kitty’ Braden, a young trans woman who leaves her Irish hometown in the 1970s and heads for London. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his efforts. but underneath it all, he cannot think beyond the mission, so I hope that it makes it more identifiable and relatable.”
Directed by Sean Ellis, the film doesn’t
5 THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (2006)
Ken Loach-directed drama set against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s. Cillian plays one of two brothers torn apart while fighting a guerilla war against Britsh forces. shy away from depicting the brutality and torture that featured in Heydrich’s regime, something Cillian believes is necessary. “I hope and I believe that this film doesn’t in any way glorify or make it gratuitous in any way, but it’s important to show that these people lived besides this all the time,” he says. “The country was occupied and these people went around in fear of their lives, so when you see the retributions carried out, you can really feel the guilt that these men carried around. “That’s why it’s useful to show the dilemma these men faced before they carried out the assassination and after it.” It takes a thoughtful persona to carry a film like this, and Sean was keen to secure Cillian from the outset, dubbing him “one of the finest actors of his generation”. “It’s very kind of him to say that and, you know, it was well worth investing in dinner last night, clearly,” he says with a laugh. “You keep on working and try and do the best you can. That’s really the only motivation,” he adds. “Legacy and any of the other stuff is for other people to talk about, I just want to do the work as best as I can.” Anthropoid is in cinemas now.
6SUNSHINE (2007)
Cillian and director Danny Boyle team up once again, this time for a sci-fi thriller. In the year 2057, a team of astronauts are sent on a mission to reignite our dying sun with a nuclear device in a last-ditch effort to save the Earth.
7 INCEPTION (2010)
Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending sci-fi adventure sees Cillian as a CEO whose dreams are infiltrated by a gang of thieves. They’re not there to steal though, rather to plant an idea in his subconscious to help a rival businessman.