After surviving a zombie invasion in 28 Days Later (or did he?), Cillian Murphy is now a fright to behold as the sinister Scarecrow of Batman Begins.

Any attempt to draw cultural connections between Batman and the republic (sic) of Ireland would seem tenuous at best: One is the comic book world's most recognizable introvert, while the other is an island nation that's generated its share of real-life loners. But Cillian Murphy may owe his livelihood, sort of, to the Caped Crusader. "The old '60s series was a huge part of my life," says the 29-year old Irishman. "So were CHiPs, The A-Team, and MacGyver. I think that’s why Irish actors can do the American accent relatively well—because we were raised on a steady diet of bad TV."

Born in County Cork (home of the Blarney Stone), Murphy almost ended up a rock guitarist, thanks to another unlikely American icon, Frank Zappa. As teenagers, Cillian (with a hard c) and his younger brother, Padraig, caught a rerun of a '70s-era BBC concert featuring the hirsute musical savant and promptly became obsessed; the two siblings even formed a Zappa-influenced band, called Sons of Mr. Greengenes, and nearly signed to a British indie label before reconsidering the offer. "Our parents were going to lose not one but two of us to the jaws of the music industry," says Murphy. "It would have been too much for them." Besides, he adds, "the label went belly-up a year afterward, so it just goes to show you."

After dropping out of the law program at University College Cork, Murphy found his calling the dramatic arts, first in a playwright Enda Walsh's coming-of-age drama, Disco Pigs, and then in a series of independent Irish films. But it wasn't until 2002 that he was able to achieve a higher profile—and higher body counts—as the hero of director Danny Boyle's apocalypse-by-zombies thriller, 28 Days Later... Though his character lives through the undead onslaught, Murphy prefers the film’s alternate ending, in which he unambiguously bites the dust. "It's always better when the protagonist dies in these movies," he says. "I like the image of the last two women having to figure out how to repopulate the world by themselves."

This month he gets to repay his karmic debt to Adam West in Batman Begins, the latest retelling of the Dark Knight's origins, from Memento director Christopher Nolan. Once a contender for the part of Bruce Wayne himself (on a shortlist that also included Billy Crudup and Jake Gyllenhaal), Murphy lost the title role to Christian Bale but was instead cast as the villainous Dr. Jonathan Crane, a neurotic psychiatrist best known to Bat-fans as the Scarecrow. "They share a quiet exterior, but when you look at Cillian, you can see there are much more interesting things going on underneath," says Nolan. "He has the most extraordinary eyes, and I kept trying to invent excuses for him to take his glasses off in close-ups." Though Murphy would seem to lack an inner dork to channel into the role, there are at least two things in life he'll confess to being deathly afraid of: "Interviews," he says, "and photo shoots."

Since completing Batman Begins, Murphy managed to conquer his fear of cameras long enough to make two more movies: Red Eye, a suspense film directed by Wes Craven, and the comedy-drama, Breakfast on Pluto, which teams him with his fellow countrymen Liam Neeson and director Neil Jordan. Sadly, this thriving acting career has all but dashed his dreams of becoming a rock star, but that hasn't stopped Murphy from continuing to admire them from afar—and sometimes from up close. "I actually got to meet Stevie Wonder at this House of Blues benefit when I was in L.A.," he recalls. "It would have been strange if he knew who I was, though. He's got more to do than find out about some Irish idiot."