The star and doting father tells Sarah Caden that only idiots ask about his family life.

"What do you call those things that look like a dental instrument?" asks Cillian Murphy, "Oh yeah, eyelash curlers. They're awful looking, but you just find yourself getting into them, and all the rest. It was great fun, really, trying eyelashes, plucking eyebrows, trying different looks. To be honest, I loved it, I just really loved it. But for a reason. Because in this case, in this film, Kitten wants to look pretty and beautiful and so I was completely happy with achieving that. I'll do anything, if it's for a reason."

Cillian Murphy makes a very pretty girl in Breakfast on Pluto, director Neil Jordan's second adaptation of a Pat McCabe novel. Well, not so much a girl, as a pretty boy. Patrick "Kitten" Braden, who wears women's clothes and full make-up—to some consternation in 1970s border-county Ireland.

Murphy refers to his character as "she" and takes compliments on his feminine appearance with better grace than most women, while admitting that once transformed, he looked very much like his younger sister. "Who's a very pretty girl, but it's a bit weird—for both of us," the Cork-born actor says with a laugh.

Breakfast on Pluto tells the story of Kitten as an outsider in small-town Ireland—and though comparisons with Jordan's The Crying Game abound, due to the cross-dressing in both, this is more a companion to Jordan's fantastic interpretation of The Butcher Boy, capturing in a near-magical way McCabe's lampooning of small-town small minds, terrorism, and sexual repression. It's a moving and amusing film, with a hilarious—if unsettling—performance by Gavin Friday as a showband singer who falls for Kitten, and a brilliant turn by Murphy, who carries off the film and some dangerous high heels with apparent effortlessness.

"Confidence and a few G & Ts" are, he says, the key to the latter.

In making Breakfast on Pluto, Murphy says everyone involved was concerned with creating "a piece of art", and to a great extent, his transformation into Kitten Braden is the central artistic endeavour. Plucked, painted, and preening as he is throughout, Murphy's morphing into the foundling boy whose inner turmoil finds outward expression in femininity is plausible, funny, and touching—and has seen him nominated for a Golden Globe. Which came as reward indeed at the end of a year that saw him take a turn into the mainstream, with blockbusters such as Red Eye and Batman Begins, while also maintaining his artistic integrity through Breakfast on Pluto and work with Ken Loach and Danny Boyle. It seems that as an actor he has been permitted to have the best of both worlds—arthouse and entertainment—though the year ended with Murphy's mind focusing on more than just work.

We met the day after the December announcement of Murphy's Golden Globe nomination for his role in Breakfast on Pluto—and while gratified, the 29-nine-year-old has his priorities under control. "It's great just even to get the recognition, even to be in the same category as Johnny Depp—who's probably my hero among contemporary actors—but I don't do it for rewards. And anyway, we just had a little baby, seven weeks ago, so nothing in the world is more important than that. At the moment, you could tell me anything and all I'm really concerned about is getting home to my baby. That's all I really care about at the moment."
This observation comes early in our conversation and is something of a surprise. Though it shouldn't be a surprise that Murphy, like all new parents, finds it hard to resist mentioning his son, Malachy, it somehow is, as he is famously reticent about his private life. In fact, later, when explaining why he will not talk about his wife of almost 18 months, artist Yvonne McGuinness, Murphy puts a sharp full stop to the topic.

"Anyone I admire has managed to keep their life and their work separate, and anyway, quality journalists never ask those questions. Only idiots ask those questions," he smiles, firmly putting the curious in their place.

Still, he cannot help but talk lovingly of his son, and so long as he feels the subject is not being pursued, enthusiastically explains how he plans a long break around now. After years of establishing himself, Murphy feels the need for family time, a little head space, and no-one would argue that he hasn't earned it. "Every actor panics when they're out of work," Murphy says. "But I'll get a job again, you know. And I've worked solidly now for a year and I've a few more films coming out, so it's not just all going to stop. I'm not going to suddenly disappear."

He continues, "It's part of the strange thing of being an actor. You completely immerse yourself in something for two or three months, and then it's over and you move on to the next thing. You know, I was in the world of Kitten for months, then I was an American terrorist (Red Eye) and then I was down in West Cork, shooting up Black and Tans (Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley). It's great, but it's strange and you have to be very careful not to take it home with you."

Particularly, Murphy laughs, when you're playing someone like Kitten. "I was giving up my masculinity—but only during the day." Yvonne, he says, was very understanding and her only bit of advice was to watch other women for inspiration. Very understanding, in fact, when you consider that shooting began on Breakfast on Pluto only days after their August 2004 wedding.

"Some of the preliminary preening had to be done before the wedding," Murphy explains, "though I retained some semblance of masculinity for my wedding day. But the shaving arms and legs and all that, I was already trying that out."

"I threw myself into it and I really enjoyed that side of it," he smiles. "I was very adamant that I wanted Kitten to be feminine, instead of a tranny, kind of campy man. I wanted her inherently feminine, and didn't find that a bit difficult. I had a ball with the make-up artist, Lynne Johnson, and yeah, lots of women would love that amount of attention and time to pamper themselves, but men love it too. You exfoliate but we scrub—it's the same thing, just with a more masculine name."

Cillian Murphy had a week off between finishing the Breakfast on Pluto shoot and starting Red Eye. In retrospect, he realises this was "just stupid", while accepting that the results for his career make it worth the effort.

Though he is never bothered in London, where he has lived for the past four years, Murphy is now recognised on the street in America. "'Hey Cillian, you rock, man!'" he calls out, shaking his head in amusement, adopting an American accent and softening the first letter of his name to a sibilant mispronunciation. It's funny, he admits, and a sign that his career is going well, but it's not something to which Murphy aspires, and he will stay in London if only for a bit of distance from the celebrity he has earned in Ireland and America.

"I'm not a movie star," says Murphy, "I'm an actor. Movie stars, in their free time, do movie star things. I'm an actor and when I've time off I do normal stuff. Like stay home and be with the baby."
"The award nomination is great, the recognition is very nice. I put my heart and soul into my work and this film, and it's nice to be recognised. But obviously, it's all nonsense in the broader sense." Breakfast on Pluto opens on Friday.