It's almost eight months later and Danny Boyle's gritty, grainy horror flick 28 Days Later... has finally crossed the Atlantic.

Made for $15 million U.S., this creepy little zombie flick was released in Britain last November where it grossed $14 million during its six-week theatrical run.

28 Days Later... is quickly becoming a cult hit on video and DVD in Britain at the same time it's getting major releases in North America and Europe.

Its young Irish star Cillian Murphy has already filmed an additional three movies and is starring in Rome in the Edinburgh International Festival production of The Seagull.

Though Boyle is being credited with reinvigorating the zombie movie genre, Murphy says he "never considered it a zombie movie while we were making it."

He didn't rush out and rent George Romero's Living Dead trilogy for inspiration or research.

He feels it was enough he'd read the British alien-invasion classic The Day of the Triffids.

In Triffids, a man wakes to discover most of Britain's population is blind and being stalked by carnivorous plant creatures.

In 28 Days Later..., Murphy's character wakes up to find he and the few humans not infected by a virus are walking snacks for carnivorous zombies.

It was anything but easy filming scenes of lifeless streets in London. "We had to do all those scenes through co-operation.

"We just asked people to pretend Leonardo DiCaprio was involved," recalls Murphy.

More taxing for him were the scenes later in an abandoned estate where he battles ravenous zombies and crazed soldiers.

"Those were the most difficult scenes due to the physical exhaustion of shooting such extremely violent sequences at night with rain machines in Britain in November."

He concedes he and his co-stars who include Naomie Harris, Kim McGarrity, and Christopher Eccleston "laughed a lot when the cameras stopped rolling."

Once the film actually hit screens Murphy heard his share of laughter from family and friends and it's not because he's battling zombies. "People laugh at me having to get my willy out."

Murphy is being hailed as the new Ewan McGregor or Colin Farrell, two actors whose work he admires enormously, but he stresses, "I'm not those guys, I'm Cillian Murphy."

If he were going to pattern his career after someone he'd look at "Johnny Depp, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Billy Crudup. I admire their choices."