Cillian Murphy calls Christopher Nolan “the perfect director”
There’s not an actor on the planet who is being more talked about right now than Cillian Murphy. With Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer finally being released after years of us cinema fans waiting, the hype surrounding Murphy has increased tenfold and will likely continue to climb over the proceeding years.
Murphy is, of course, no stranger to working with Nolan, having performed for him in several of his movies, including The Dark Knight Trilogy, in which he played Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow, Inception and Dunkirk. But it feels like Oppenheimer is all about Murphy in the leading role.
In a recent interview with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast, Murphy expressed his admiration for the widespread talent on offer in Oppenheimer. He said, “I kinda forget sometimes, and I’d check the call sheet and think, ‘Shit, Gary Oldman’s in tomorrow, or Ken Branagh’, you know. Tom Conti’s so brilliant in it. Downey’s so electric in his role.”
Maron then brought up the fact that the Murphy-Nolan collaboration has extended to six movies and asked exactly what the actor has learned from working with the director. Murphy, in no uncertain terms, said, “I think he might be the perfect director. He’s got all the facets that you need in the perfect director.”
“He’s amazing with actors; he’s incredibly brilliant visually. He writes the things himself, and they’re made for the theatre,” Murphy continued, “They’re event movies, but they challenge you. I love the way he presupposes a level of intelligence in the audience. He knows the audience aren’t dummies. He knows the audience can keep up. He knows the audiences want to be provoked and challenged.”
Evidently, the fact that Murphy and Nolan keep working together shows that there’s a special relationship between the two cinematic icons, a level of trust that’s hard to build but once it’s there is even harder to break down. “I love working with him. He really pushes you,” Murphy noted. “He expects the best from you, and he’s rigorous in everything and demanding.”
Though Nolan’s movies are big-budget feasts for the eyes, Murphy admitted that working on one of his films is a more intimate affair. “The sets are huge, but it feels like being on an independent movie,” he said. “There’s Chris and the cameraman, just one camera unless there’s a huge setpiece. Boom and op, there’s no video footage, there’s no monitor, there’s nothing, none of that. He’s a very kind of analogue filmmaker, you know.”
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