He delivered the breakout performance of the year as a zombie-killing postapocalyptic survivor in 28 Days Later... Note to Hollywood: it's pronounced with a hard "C".

"Don't fucking call this article Murphy's Law!" jokes Cillian Murphy, referring to the fact that more stories on him than he'd care to mention have borne said title. He's got a point: media pundits don't get him, whether they're calling him the "next big blank" (just don't call him the next Colin Farrell), or making him out to be some legal eagle when he is, in fact, a law-school dropout. Besides, considering his recent streak of good fortune, the whatever-can-go-wrong adage is inappropriate. Last year, he defeated the undead in Danny Boyle's summer zombie romp 28 Days Later..., had a hasty but harrowing cameo in the Academy Award vehicle Cold Mountain and devirginized the Girl With a Pearl Earring.
"Your only calling card is your work," says the 27-year-old actor. "Unless you're given the chance to work, you don't have anything. It's like being a regular at a club. How the fuck do you become a regular if they won't let you in?" Not that this gangly Irishman is being turned away. As Murphy orders vodka cocktails at West Hollywood's to-be-seen-in Sky Bar, he seems comfortable with his calling as Hollywood's new wunderkind. With his next role, starring opposite Colin Farrell in the oh-so-Irish comedy Intermission, just around the corner, Hollywood's finally learning to pronounce "Cillian with a hard "C".
"Initially I was very suspicious [of L.A.], but now I like it, because I guess now I meet people who can pronounce my name."
According to the press (if they're to be trusted) that name may one day eclipse many marquee names—like, say, Farrell's and Matt Damon's. Murphy is willing to entertain that prospect, but realizes that 28 Days Later...'s alternate ending (viewable on the film's DVD)—in which his character, Jim, dies from a virus that's wiped out the population, leaving the last two women on earth unable to further the human race—would never fly if Jim had been played by a big star.
"If you see Matt Damon in that role, you know he's gonna survive. He ain't dyin'. He's not turning into a zombie. If someone of that caliber was in there, the ending would be different," says Murphy. "I personally like the one where I die. I get shot and then they try to resuscitate me on the table. I die and end up where I began—in a hospital, yeah? On this slab."
This deconstruction reveals Murphy's rare ability to explore the philosophical underpinnings of his roles. The lengths to which he'll go for such roles, even the small ones, are also rare — no wonder he's getting noticed.
Consider Pearl Earring, in which he plays a pauperly butcher boy for whom it-girl Scarlett Johansson harbors carnal longings (admittedly, a sweet setup). What did Murphy do to prepare? "We went to this abattoir in Luxembourg and chopped shit up. It was my idea," he says. Why would a vegetarian take it upon himself to hack swine into little bits? "Have you ever seen someone smoking on film who doesn't smoke? They always do something dumb, and immediately it's obvious they don't smoke." He laughs. "It's not method acting—it's just so, when I come on screen, people don't go, 'Hang on a minute, that guy's never carried a pig before!' Otherwise some butcher in the audience will stand up and rip on the whole movie."
And nobody wants that. Especially since the film, a gentle period drama, could expand his already vast fan base. Yet he's quick to deflate any notion that burgeoning stardom has affected his lifestyle. "I spend a lot of time at home, actually," he says. "I don't really do the party or the premiere thing—unless it's my own, and then it would be rude not to go. It's not a very hectic life at all, really."
He smiles and gazes at the Sky Bar's turquoise-blue swimming pool (sic) he looks peaceful, yet intent, taut. This intensity is probably what compelled one casting director to audition the wiry actor for his villainous role in the hotly tipped Batman 5, starring Christian Bale and Michael Caine. "A lot of this success—if it happened to me when I was 18—well then, I don't know," Murphy says. "But I'm a bit older, and I've been there, and it's not that alluring to me now. When I act, I want it to be the most important thing that I do, but when I'm not doing it, I don't give a shit about it."
That's a good tactic considering how cutthroat Hollywood can be, especially its journalistic contingent. Murphy's hefty press kit even includes the odd write-up where his polite reticence to bare his soul has been misconstrued as, God forbid, some kind of inner dullness. "I remember doing an interview, and it was only a half-hour thing, but the man did a massive piece. At the end, he was like, 'Cillian Murphy: nice guy, but not very interesting.' I was like, 'Fuck you, man!'"
Still on this warm, breezy late-fall evening, Murphy is savvy enough to understand his limitations. "I don't consider myself copy," he concedes. "Most magazines just want to know who you're fucking or who you're slagging off." He looks out toward the Los Angeles skyline as if to address all of them: the press, the studio execs, the wannabe actor who's coming over to refresh his drink. "My objective," he avows, "is simply to make good art."