Автор: Paul Byrne

He's just as at home at the top of the box-office as he is on the stage. The only place Cillian Murphy isn't too comfortable, he tells Paul Byrne, is doing interviews.

Given that Cillian Murphy has convincingly played psychos (Disco Pigs, Red Eye), mad professors (Batman Begins), kitten-soft cross-dressers (Breakfast on Pluto), and street fighting Irish Republicans, it's always a surprise to find that the man himself is so darn shy. Walking into this room at Dublin's Merrion Hotel last Monday, the 30-year old Corkonian is practically hidden in the corner. And, unlike so many coy Hollywood stars, Murphy's isn't playing hard to get for effect. It's plain that doing interviews doesn't fill his heart with joy and wonder. "You get used to them, of course," he says when I point this out, "but, you know, it's an unnatural process really. Being grilled for half an hour about your work, about who you are, about what you do. I know there's no blinding light in my eyes, but it is all a little surreal."

Cillian Murphy could always refuse to step out into that light, but he's keen today to help promote the sci-fi thriller Sunshine, his second collaboration with director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland after the surprise low-budget hit, 28 Days Later… Following a team of astronauts as they set the controls for the heart of the sun with a bomb the size of Kansas strapped to their ship, in the hope of re-igniting the dying sun, Sunshine is as much about inner space as it is outer space. There are no United Colors Of Benetton crowds waiting back home watching this mission to save earth from eternal darkness, no high fives in bars across the globe. A film that's undoubtedly Kubrickian in its starkness and beauty, Boyle thankfully avoided making 90210: A Space Odyssey. "There's always that pressure, to deliver a very teen-orientated film, no matter what your story is," says Murphy. "What I loved about Sunshine was that it wasn't about being cool, or trying to make a hip film. It's a much darker, deeper affair than that."

Which doesn't always work, of course, as anyone who sat through Steven Soderbergh's recent remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 classic Solaris will testify. Sunshine is closer to Alien, revelling in its confined space and, once things start going wrong, the growing sense of dread. Of someone lurking in the shadows. It is, I say to Murphy, a brave film, a mainstream arthouse offering. "It is just that, yeah," he nods, "a mainstream arthouse movie. I know that Danny was left alone to make the film he wanted to make, thanks really to the success of 28 Days Later… We shot this in the summer of 2005, and Danny spent all of 2006 in the editing suite, getting the look of the movie right. I think it looks incredible, and that closing 20 minutes just make my head spin."

Given the success Cillian Murphy has enjoyed over the last few years, since breaking through internationally with 28 Days Later in 2002. He popped by in Intermission and Cold Mountain the following year, and just about stole Scarlett Johansson's heart in Girl With a Pearl Earring in-between, but it was 2005, with the no.1 hits Batman Begins and Red Eye, that it became obvious Cillian Murphy was a true international star. That his last two movies—Neil Jordan's camp and colourful but slightly crap Breakfast on Pluto and Ken Loach's stirring The Wind That Shakes the Barley—were made on home turf is a reflection on Murphy's career plan. "I certainly have no desire to go to LA," he says. "It's just a place where, if I stayed there for more than a week, I'd go completely and utterly crazy. It's just not the sort of environment that I can work in."

The fact too that you never see Murphy's wife, Yvonne Guinness, or their young son, Malachy, is also a reflection on this particular leading man's approach to his job. "I'm a character actor," says Murphy. "At least, they're the sort of roles that I'm most interested. If they also happen to be the leading man occasionally, that's fine, but I'm not interested in getting the girl, or saving the day, in the traditional leading man sense. You very rarely get interesting stories coming out of that. And part of my desire to do my job well means not being a celebrity. I would just be crap at it anyway—red carpets just make me nervous. But even if I could handle all that, I don't think I want to be popping up in the morning papers, waving to the crowd at some premiere. The less people know about Cillian Murphy the easier it is for me to do my job."

The closest Murphy has gotten to doing the celebrity shuffle would have been a night on the town in Dublin recently, when, having auditioned for Brendan Gleeson's planned adaptation of At Swim Two Birds, he ended up having a few with the big man himself, Gabriel Byrne, and Colin Farrell. "Colin actually went home early, believe it or not," he smiles, "but the rest of us had a wonderful time. I even ended up indulging in my early passion, music, when a guitar magically surfaced out of nowhere. Paid for that the next day though, so, you see, I'm not just cut out for the glamourous life."

Coming up for Murphy is Paul Soter's comedy Watching The Detectives, co-starring my future wife, Lucy Liu ("She was asking about you all the time," quips Cillian when I mention this), and, possibly, John Maybury's The Best Time of Our Lives, with Lindsay Lohan and Keira Knightley also circling the project. In the meantime, Murphy is happy to tread the boards back home in London, having just finished a run of John Kolvenbach's Love Song at the New Ambassadors Theatre. When he's not being a good family man thing, of course. "Or reading scripts, hoping for that special jump when you recognise something wonderful," finishes Murphy. "No amount of money can buy you that kind of joy, when you find a great script, and you set out to do it justice."