Cillian Murphy discusses Berlin Film Festival opener ‘Small Things Like These’
The Berlin Film Festival kicks off on 15th February with Cillian Murphy’s new project, Small Things Like These, marking the first time an Irish movie has opened the festival.
Murphy not only stars in the drama but also produced the movie alongside Matt Damon, Alan Moloney, Drew Vinton, and Jeff Robinov. Set in 1985, the film follows Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in rural Ireland, as he tries to keep his family afloat in the run-up to Christmas. During his delivery rounds, he discovers a dark secret about a local convent.
The movie is based on Claire Keegan’s best-selling novel, which Murphy “fell in love” with. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor said he instantly “very much wanted to play the part” and “thought, well, the best thing to do then is to see if Claire will give us the rights and to see if we can put a team together.”
After purchasing the rights, Murphy assembled a team of collaborators from throughout his career. He asked playwright Enda Walsh, who he worked with on Disco Pigs, to write the screenplay. Peaky Blinders’ director, Tim Mielants, was brought into the director’s chair. The movie also stars Emily Watson as Sister Mary, alongside Ciaran Hinds, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley and Zara Devlin.
The book is set in New Ross in County Wexford and was filmed on location in Ireland. “It felt to me that the town is like a character in the book,” Murphy said. When it came to selecting settings, he looked to one of his biggest teachers as he said, “I’ve learned a lot from Chris Nolan about it — is the power of shooting and locations and not building sets.”
Small Things Like These isn’t the first time one of Keegan’s books has made it to the Berlin Film Festival. In 2022, The Quiet Girl premiered at the venent, which was adapted from her short story, Foster. It went on to become the first Irish-language film nominated for an International Feature Oscar.
Despite being set in Ireland, Murphy said, “There’s a wonderful universality in this story, mostly because of the specificity of it.”
He added: “We’ve shown this movie in Los Angeles, in the U.K., in Ireland, and our audiences have all responded to it on a very deep emotional level. That’s exactly what we wanted to achieve.”
Watch the first look at Small Things Like These below.
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