Cillian Murphy—The Irish-born villain of Batman Begins visits his dark side again as a troubled tranny singer.

The day after his wedding last August, Cillian Murphy had his eyebrows plucked and his chest and legs shaved. Instead of taking a honeymoon with his new bride, the Irish actor was getting into character for the upcoming Breakfast on Pluto, in which he plays a transvestite cabaret singer in late-sixties London. Fortunately, Murphy's beloved didn't balk at her new husband's girly grooming regime.

"She was delighted," says the slim, blue-eyed 29-year-old Cork native over coffee in a North London café. "There were all these extra products around the house."

Ever since his starring role as the heroic killer of the undead in 28 Days Later..., Danny Boyle's 2002 fish-and-chips-flavored zombie film, Murphy has been enjoying a career path as smooth as a waxed bikini line. He worked with director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) on Pluto, which opens this November, and sees his troubled-transvestite character as the proverbial role of a lifetime: "He represents all of the misfits in the world who get taken advantage of."

In fact, Murphy's résumé is suffering from something of a misfit motif. In Batman Begins he plays the Scarecrow, a sadistic psychiatrist turned criminal who wields a lab-cooked cocktail that terrifies his victims to death. But Murphy nearly scored the title role after a screen test blew away director Chris Nolan. "We just said, let him put the suit on and see what he does." says Nolan. "And he just filled the screen." But not the suit, unfortunately. "I didn't think I had the right physicality for Batman, to be honest," says the slight five-foot-nine actor. "I mean, they'd have to shoot it from perspective."

Though he was raised "on a diet of bad American television," Murphy didn't grow up dreaming of being a cog in the box-office machine. The law-school dropout has no formal dramatic training and came to acting when, on a lark, he auditioned for Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs. His turn as a troubled teenager helped make the dark drama a hit and led to a starring role in the film version in 2001.

After a string of small Irish films, he was cast in 28 Days Later... Soon he had a big role in Intermission—alongside fellow Irishman Colin Farrell—and another in Girl With a Pearl Earring, in which he de-knickers Scarlett Johanssen.

Now it looks like Murphy is going to keep letting his freak flag fly. "I do tend to pick jobs that are on the darker side, because there's more potential for drama," he says. "But I'd love to do a Woody Allen movie." Just don't expect to see him in, say, Deuce Bigalow: Gaelic Gigolo. "I don't ever want to look back on my career and go, 'Oh, my God, don't mention that!'"