Cillian Murphy on Playing Bad Guy Jackson Rippner in Red Eye: You just have to do as best you can, give it your best shot. I'm a nice person, you know. You just have to investigate that. You just get inside, you understand how he works and you form a profile for yourself. You do all the background for yourself, none of which appears on the screen, obviously, but you have it up in your head. And for me, one of the key things was that he's just a professional and it's not seen in terms of morals. It's just about achieving an objective, getting a job done.

Cillian Murphy on Relating to Jackson Rippner in Red Eye: You don't have to identify with a character to play them, you just have to understand. Very little of that was me. Very, very little. I thought the dialogue was great in it. I liked the way he spoke. He had a sense of irony, which you don't get in all American movies. I liked the levels within him. I like the transformative nature of acting. The highest compliment somebody can pay to me is when they go, "I forgot it was you, I couldn't recognize you." That's what I like from acting.

Cillian Murphy on His Costar Rachel McAdams: It's just always great to get on with people and to admire them, you know. And to go, "This is a really, really good actor I'm working with here" and you know when you come in it's going to be interesting and you're gonna have a lot to work against.

Cillian Murphy on the Pace and Setup of Red Eye: I read it really, really quickly. It was a very compelling read and I thought "How the hell are they gonna write themselves out of this?" And then they did. It was an actor's piece. It was just two actors for the majority of the film. Two actors sat next to each other in this tiny little space and I loved the fact it would have to be so controlled. Yet the amount you’d have to convey was huge. The issues you’re dealing with are so big. That’s what appealed to me.

Cillian Murphy on Shooting Red Eye in Sequence: That's always a huge bonus for actors, if they can try to achieve that chronological thing. Some of the end of the movie, some of the airport stuff was out of sequence. The majority of the stuff on the plane was chronological, which was great. It just means you have the experience as the character would, because it's always difficult going from the end of the movie at the start and in the middle you've lost all your family or something, you know what I mean, and you haven't done that yet.

Cillian Murphy on Living in London: I'd call London home, but I'm Irish. I spend time here [in L.A.]. I come out here when I need to have meetings, come out here if I need to shoot a film, come out here to do this [press], but I need the proximity to my family and to my friends and London provides that. It's lovely just to know that you can get on a plane and in an hour you're back at the home amongst family and friends.

Cillian Murphy on Danny Boyle’s Sunshine: We're rehearsing. We start shooting at the end of August. I play a physicist. Danny's just amazing. He's a real visionary. He has a very wonderful style, I think. I love his visual style. He's just a great storyteller, Danny is. He's a brilliant storyteller. I was delighted to work for those guys again because the first experience was so good. It's just a great cast. We've got Michelle Yeoh and Chris Evans is in it. This great cast of actors. It's great to be shooting at home in London as well.

Cillian Murphy on More Scarecrow in Batman Films: I'd love to do that. DC sent me all the comics. He was one of the oldest villains from the comic books, so I read all of those. That's where you get all the back story, you know.

Cillian Murphy on Blockbusters and Career: I don't think about it like that. I just think about the roles and if people like the films, that's great. I don't think about it strategically, really. If they decide to make another Batman, I'd love to be in it. The main attraction for me on that film was Chris Nolan directing.

Cillian Murphy on Dark Material: I suppose I tend to like slightly darker things—people have leveled that on me before and I accept that because in my opinion, if I mention the best movies or the best books, there's always something that's involving slightly darker element of out psyche. I like seeing people under pressure. I like seeing what happens to people when they're under pressure.

Cillian Murphy on Blockbusters and Career: This Was Not the Summer of Cillian: I don't think about it like that. I just think about the roles and if people like the films, that's great. I don't think about it strategically, really.

No Agent Pressure: Well, he wouldn't be putting me in blockbuster movies anyway. I decide which sorts of movies I want to do and if I decide to do theatre then that's cool. You have to get people around you that understand with you and work with you. We have no trajectory. We're not ticking boxes, know what I mean. I try to make art, effectively, and within a Hollywood movie it's commerce, but ultimately you leave something behind you that effects (sic) somebody, one person, that's the objective.

The Problem With Most Scripts: Murphy: I think a lot of it isn't about making art, it's about making money, you know. Sometimes there are great scripts... I think a lot of the scripts are effected (sic) by too many cooks—from producers to writers to everybody else who's getting involved—and people underestimate the intelligence of the audience time and time and time again. Shorthand. Audiences don't need shorthand if you're smart.