Автор: Helen Barlow

With blue eyes that dazzle for the camera like few others, and the ability to portray brooding intensity as well as be romantic and loveable, 28-year-old Cillian Murphy is the hottest acting talent to come out of Ireland since Colin Farrell. As it happens, the pair are friends, occasional drinking buddies, and are co-stars on John Crowley's Irish comedy-drama, Intermission.

It's a stroke of luck we get to meet. Murphy, who shone in Danny Boyle's surprise hit, the post-apocalyptic zombie movie 28 Days Later... (that film's $US6-million budget was less than Leonardo DiCaprio's salary on Boyle's previous bomb, The Beach), and who played a deserter alongside Jude Law in Cold Mountain, as well as wooing Scarlett Johansson in Girl With a Pearl Earring, is in Cannes on a flying visit from his Scarecrow role in Batman Begins to announce his upcoming transvestite turn in Breakfast On Pluto, directed by Neil Jordan.

The film may well mark Murphy's break into the international arena, since Jordan, arguably Ireland's leading director, had taken on a similarly themed, although more political story, in The Crying Game, which won him a screenwriting Oscar and five other Academy Award nominations.

"I've always wanted to work with Neil, and I'm looking forward to making the movie very much," says Murphy. "I guess I'm going to have to do something about the hairy legs, but other than that ... In all seriousness, it's a wonderful transformative role. Those are the kinds of roles every actor looks for."

Certainly, his eyes (which he says come from his mum), coupled with his high cheekbones, will help make Murphy an alluring woman in the film, which, like Jordan's previous, The Butcher Boy, is based on a novel by Pat McCabe. Jordan was also a producer on Intermission, and it was then that he recognised Murphy's talent—and his ability to carry a movie.

In the film, which begins with Colin Farrell's bad boy headbutting a woman, Murphy's John is more the gentle soul who is nonetheless misdirected. To provide his girlfriend (Kelly McDonald [sic] from Gosford Park) with a chance to prove her love for him, he breaks up with her, oddly enough. She then meets an older, balding man—and John goes to great lengths to woo her back.

"I think what John does in the movie is quite symptomatic of an impotence in men in terms of expressing their emotions," says Murphy.

"To get it straight in his head that she loves him, he goes about it in this obscure way. He can't just ask her. It's a male problem, and I think maybe it's more endemic in Ireland among Irish males." The actor stops, smiles, and adds that he's in a stable relationship.

"Personally, I'd hope I'd be a bit more articulate about affairs of the heart, but men do need to talk about that stuff more, and this film taps into that beautifully. Men tend to hang around with other men too much, and if they hung around with women a bit more it would help things. But what the f--- (sic) do I know?"

Maybe Farrell hangs around with one woman too many, I suggest.

"You know, Colin's a friend of mine. Obviously he's in the papers for other things, but what I admire about him is his acting ability and what he's managed to do. He's a bona fide movie star, and we haven't had one of those in Ireland for a while. His participation in Intermission, for example, was so crucial to it getting made. I'm a different actor to Colin and I think I couldn't play the roles he plays. We complement each other, hopefully, and I wish him all the best. I don't see him enough, but we stay in touch."

Now Murphy is playing a baddie in Batman Begins, as Farrell did in the dire Daredevil.

"It was a shite film, but he was brilliant in it," expounds Murphy, displaying his wonderful Irish vernacular (he hails from Cork).

"I like to mix it up a bit. Batman Begins is my first experience in a full-on blockbuster. My interests don't generally lie in those sorts of films, but the director is Chris Nolan (Memento, Insomnia), the script is wonderful and it's a great cast.

"I can have a bit of fun with it, too, because my only motivation really is being bad. I love doing proper dramatic character studies, but it's also good to have a bit of fun, dress up and stuff."