Murphy's Job

Cillian Murphy plays enigmatic newcomer Emmett

What did you think of the first film?

I was knocked out by it. It ticks all the boxes of a genre movie, but it was actually about family and loss, and thematically was digging a lot deeper than you might expect. To me it was a pure, visceral cinematic experience, one that demands to be watched in the theatre. What they did with sound is amazing. People just sat there in a completely frozen state, unable to eat their popcorn!

I was so impressed that I penned an email to John Krasinski to tell him how wonderful I thought it was, but I chickened out and never sent it. Then about a year later I got an email from him about this picture, so it was a weird serendipity!

What can you tell us about your character?

Emmett kind of represents the outside world – the rest of the survivors. John’s character, in the first movie, had a very specific approach to surviving with his family, which was quite unique. What this movie does is shine a light on how other people responded, and how different some responses would be…

Often in post-apocalyptic scenarios what’s really monstrous is humanity – does that come into it?

Yeah, a pretty common trope in these sorts of movies is that generally humans tend to be worse than anything that we can imagine, and a human character can be worse sometimes than an alien or a virus or whatever. But I think that there’s a different spin on [that idea] in this story that they’ve managed to make original.

Does a film where the dialogue is quite sparse let you stretch some different actorly muscles?

Well, I come from a theatre background, so I’ve always enjoyed acting with my body. Theatre is the wide shot, really, so you have to convey everything with your physicality, Similarly, in a film like this where there’s quite a lot of action, and then the notion that you have to keep communicating vocally at a minimum, there’s a lot that you have to transfer non-verbally, which is a great challenge as an actor. I love that sort of thing.

And there’s less line-learning too!

Yeah, but I don’t mind line-learning so much. It’s probably the one part of my brain that functions in an efficient way!

Working with young deaf actor Millie Simmonds, who plays Regan, did you have the opportunity to pick up any sign language?

Well, she has a translator there all the time, so you can speak very efficiently to her without sign. But yeah, it’s fun to try and learn the sign for your name, or stuff you couldn’t imagine there’d be sign for. And it’s such a beautiful language to observe.

Millie’s an incredible actress. She’s got a very powerful presence; she has this aura about her, that transfers on-screen. I’ve always enjoyed working with younger actors, because they have such powerful instincts. When you’ve been doing it almost 30 years you have to work harder to access that instinct, whereas these kids just have it.

It’s lovely to watch – and always very educational for me, because I learn from them. IB