Автор: Liam Rudden

Last Friday saw the Scottish Premiere of Sunshine, at Cineworld, Fountainpark. A space-age thriller, the movie reunites the team behind Shallow Grave and Trainspotting—Scottish director Danny Boyle and producer Andrew Macdonald.

Unlike their previous films, both of which were set on the streets of the Capital, the action of Sunshine unfolds in outer space.

"The premise of Sunshine," explains Macdonald, "is that in 50 years from now the sun is dying. It is no longer providing the energy and the light that mankind needs to survive on Earth.

"The entire global community pools its resources to send a mission into space to deliver a bomb to reignite the part of the sun that is failing.

"On their journey towards the Sun the crew stumble upon a ship that was sent on the same mission seven years previously, drifting in space. From this point on things start to go very wrong."

Sunshine stars Irish-born actor Cillian Murphy, one of Hollywood's hottest young talents, who confesses that the one thing he is particularly rubbish at is science, a failing that proved to be something of a problem when he landed the lead role in the movie.

In the futuristic thriller set in 2057, Murphy stars as the physicist whose job it is to re-ignite the sun. The irony of his casting is not lost on the 31-year-old, who confesses he "baled out of maths and science" at school.

"I really had to try hard to play this physicist," he says with a laugh. "Considering I dropped all the sciences at school it was a bit of a challenge to say the least."

Yet, despite not knowing the first thing about physics, Murphy threw himself into the part by spending time in Geneva with a group of scientists currently investigating the origins of the big bang.

"It was so interesting getting into the mindset of these guys who have extra-ordinary intellect," he explains.

"Don't get me wrong, we had fun with them, but they are aware of the serious business of their job, which is basically to discover the meaning of life through science," he adds, widening those trademark blue eyes. "It's just mind-blowing."

It wasn't just trying to get his head around the 'science bit' that presented a challenge for Murphy while on set—he also found some of his outfits a bit out of this world.

"The space suits weren't that comfortable," he says with a grimace. "There was also this thing called helmet-cam which we had to wear and was one of Danny's wonderful creations. It was physically tough because the helmet and camera combined to weigh a ton, but those scenes do look believable onscreen because a lot of the time we were genuinely sweating and out of breath."

Even though the part presented plenty of mental and physical challenges and the star was completely unfamiliar with the subject matter, the actor says he was drawn to the role because he was keen to reunite with director Boyle and writer Alex Garland who he had last worked with on the hit zombie movie 28 Days Later…

"Alex's screenplay was key," he says. "The script was riveting from start to finish, really intelligent and well written. Alex's writing fills a script with loads of sub-layers about modern day issues and he has managed to make it within the guise of a very clever, very intelligent, genre piece, and Danny's just one of the best directors working today," he adds.

"When you work with Danny you become energised. He has this amazing level of energy and commitment that he brings to the film.

"It was great to come back to that after doing other films, and hopefully to bring a bit more maturity and experience to the project."