The one movie Cillian Murphy wants everyone to see: “I give it to my actor friends”
Despite being one of the actors of our generation, delivering knockout performances that are packed with varying emotions, I simply can’t imagine Cillian Murphy being bothered by anything in the real world.
Half shy, half cool, it seems as though he maintains a steady level of indifference in everyday life, the sort that acts as the complete antithesis to his professional work. Outside the realms of whatever set he’s working on, it seems then, that attention isn’t his thing, and so I find it hard to imagine stories of him dressing up on Halloween, yelling “trick or treat!”
I would be right in that assumption, for he spent his formative years celebrating the faux holiday by hunkering down and getting stuck into a horror film. But in that ritual, Murphy stumbled upon a happy accident, one that would ultimately light the spark of a now Oscar-winning career.
When he stumbled into an old video store, looking for an appropriately jumpy flick to get him through the spooky season, the store owner handed over what he thought was a horror flick called Scarecrow. Safe in the knowledge that Scarecrow was a fitting name for a scary film, the owner handed it over to a young Murphy, and with it, a moment in time.
“We took it home and it turns out it’s the 1972 movie directed by Jerry Schatzberg with Al Pacino and Gene Hackman” Murphy explained. Curious and ultimately, without the luxury of modern-day choice and Netflix, Murphy and his brother continued on and watched the film. Accepting it wasn’t in fact a horror, they basked in what was an acting masterclass from both Pacino and Hackman.
He continued, “For those who know the movie, it’s kind of like a road movie, it’s those two guys travelling across America, and it’s kind of really a love story, a platonic love story between these two outsiders, these loners.”
“Anyway, it had a huge impression,” he continued, “it made a huge impression on me at that age and I was really struck by the performances and so I think it triggered something in my mind and even though it didn’t really end up acting in film properly until my mid 20s, but that’s a film that I watch over and over again, it’s a film that I give to actor friends and director friends who might not have seen it and I think it might be, you know, one of my favourite films.”
It’s likely a film that could be considered Al Pacino’s most underrated performance and one that Murphy surely identifies with in each growing stage of his career. As Pacino became a big screen regular, the expanse of his roles continued to grow, becoming an acting behemoth upon which these high-budget movies could hang on.
Scarecrow is somewhere on the other end of the spectrum. More muted and understated, it required Pacino to keep tapping into the natural essence of what great acting is. Now, with an Academy Award under his belt and the dirty claws of Hollywood stardom trying to dig their way into Murphy’s inner circle, understanding the essential and human element of acting, remains as important as ever.
