Cillian Murphy is on a mission to strike fear in to Bruce Wayne’s heart as the Scarecrow in Batman Begins.

Fresh from fighting off raging virus victims in 28 Days Later..., Cillian Murphy is now taking on Christian Bale's brooding anti-hero as Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. The Scarecrow, in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. But before he was cast as one of the movie's main villains, Murphy was originally in the running for the title role. "They screen tested six guys for the part of Batman and I was one of those who auditioned," reveals the Irish actor. "But Christian was the obvious choice."

Although he didn't get to be Bruce Wayne himself, Murphy was lucky enough to get a shot at another important character in the film. "Chris Nolan called me up afterwards and said to me, 'There's this other role. Would you be interested in taking a look at that?' So I did and I thought the Scarecrow was a fantastic part. The opportunity to work with Chris as a director and get involved with the project was an incredible opportunity."

Murphy admits that he didn’t come to the project as a comic-book fan. "I wasn't a big aficionado. I loved the Batman movies and I really enjoyed the TV series as a kid. When I landed the part, I didn't have any comic-books, so D.C. sent me a huge swathe of them. I got into them pretty quickly so that I could research the character and his genesis."

Unlike Bale, who had to train constantly to bulk up his physique (especially after starving himself for The Machinist), Murphy was fortunate as the filmmakers tried to echo the physical look of the character in the comics on screen. "In the comic-books he's very much this scarecrow figure. Here we wanted to accentuate his frailty and the fact that he is lacking physically so he makes up for this lack with his fear gas and other weapons. There were a few fight scenes I had to take part in, so that meant I had to do a little training. But I got off lightly compared to Christian."

Murphy’s Lore

Traditionally, the villains have largely driven the Batman movies. But here the Dark Knight is the main attraction—so we won't be seeing the origins of Scarecrow or Ra's Al Ghul, the other bad guy in Batman Begins. This made Murphy very conscious of how he should play him. "Because the film looks at how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman rather than giving the audience the genesis of the villains, The Scarecrow is a fully formed character from the moment you first see him. So this is something that I had to have at the back of my head the whole time. If you look at The Scarecrow, you can see that this is a figure who's exhibiting all the symptoms of somebody who has been traumatized early on in life."

Unlike the other Batman films, Batman Begins is written by a man who has had a lifelong love affair with comics, David Goyer, and Murphy sees this as an important factor. "I met David in San Diego at the Comic Con last summer. From speaking to him there, I could tell that he's read comics all his life. He worked very closely with Chris Nolan on the script but the fact that it's coming from a fan's perspective meant that the public were very comfortable when they heard who was taking over the franchise."

Batman Begins has a stellar cast, which includes Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman. Murphy felt very fortunate to be working with such high calibre actors.

"When you end up working with these guys, you know they're legends," he explains. "They’re the best in the world at what they do. But they're still just actors and once you get in a room, it's the same as it always is, except that it's on a bigger scale. Obviously it's a bit overwhelming when you get there and you pass a trailer for Michael Caine and you have to do a scene with Gary Oldman. These are guys I watched on film while I was growing up, who made a big impact on me. But you can't let it faze you."

Certainly a vital element of a project like Batman Begins is the costumes. Murphy was luckier than Bale in that his outfit was simpler than the Batsuit. But he still found it a little strange to wear. "I had to wear a mask and they created this head mold, which is a weird experience," he notes. "It feels like sensory deprivation. They make two holes so you can breathe. The mask was made of Hessian, I think, with a latex structure inside so it could keep its shape.

"They actually made a number of different masks for a variety of scenes. There were guys who were mask wranglers and we were looked after very well."

Despite the assorted challenges presented by working on the movie, it's clear that Cillian Murphy enjoyed his time as the Scarecrow in Batman Begins. "I'm never going to complain about being on set for Batman Begins," he states. "It's a really nice part and it was very special to be involved, so I'll never ever forget it."