We're all having a scary summer thanks to Cillian Murphy, who first made waves in the creepy 28 Days Later... As the Scarecrow in Batman Begins, he created a Batvillain on par with Nicholson's Joker. In Red Eye, he terrorizes poor Rachel McAdams on an all-night flight. His character's name? Ominous: Jackson Rippner.

Jeez. This guy Murphy must be one mean SOB.

"Well, here's the thing. I have made 10 feature films and played a bad guy in two … I knew this was going to happen when I got the release schedule. I thought, 'Uh-huh, f---ing (sic) baddie.' But it's coincidental."

So, he's not scary. He's, like, a scaredy-cat?

"I'm not scared of spiders or flying. I'm scared of being scared. I'm scared of being alone. Like anyone else."

For a creepy killer, he's sure sensitive.

"I think women are the superior sex. I do. They're beautiful. They make babies. They are funny. They are the best. There's only two sexes, but they are the best."

That attitude must please his wife of one year, Irish artist Yvonne McGuinness. Not that being sensitive means you're weak, of course.

"My mother is a very strong woman, yes. My grandmother is strong, too. She has always done her own thing and had her own mind—and still is a very strong lady at 85. I think being in the company of women like that certainly gives you a broader view of the world."

"A broader view of the world"; that means, like, empathizing with a badass like Jack Rippner.

"You can't apply your moral framework onto this character. And you have to understand the mechanisms and engine of this man to play it. He's doing his best, and he's lying all the time. He's obviously not completely there. All the pieces are there, but they're not interacting correctly in his head. I like the fact that he just appears, and you don't know why, and he's got this weird name. There's this kind of duality to his personality, and I thought that was interesting."

Whew. Being evil seems like a nine-to-five job.

"I was tired all the time."

Well, yeah, he's a big movie star—28 Days Later..., Cold Mountain, Girl With a Pearl Earring, the upcoming Breakfast on Pluto with Liam Neeson. That must be tiring.

"I have quite a quiet life. I don't tend to go to openings or parties or any of that stuff, so as a result you don't tend to end up in the paper, then as a result people don't have such a huge recognition of you."

Good thing he's an actor and not, like, a rock star.

"I didn't start acting until I was 20. I wanted to be a musician. I'd been playing in bands for years and years and years. It was obviously the performance in me. I always loved, loved films, but I never thought I'd be involved. It was theater that was the main attraction to me. So I did a lot of theater. I saw this play in Cork, and I knocked on the door of the theater company and I said, 'Can I audition for a play?' and they gave me an audition. The play [Disco Pigs] was a huge success, and then they made it into a movie. That was just luck."

Wait! A musician? Like Russell Crowe? Or Keanu Reeves? Or Bruce Willis? Or …

"I play it, but I never want to do it professionally. It's always s--t when actors do music. It's always a bad idea."

Cillian Murphy and Colin Farrell are different people, so stop comparing them.

"I am very different from Colin Farrell … We are both Irish and both the same age but people aren't going to just give you roles just because you're Irish and Colin Farrell was in a movie. That's just shorthand. I have worked with Colin. I like him tremendously. I like the way he is not phony about anything. Everything you read from him is true and real."

Well, at least you can pronounce "Colin Farrell." But "Cillian" …

"It's pretty easy. The C sounds like a K. Cillian was a saint, as every Irish person was."