Cillian Murphy

Cillian: I think there's such a thing as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform.

Chillian: Too many filmmakers today are trying to put their work into a box. I can't stand that! Making movies is a lot of work. Let's take some risks.

Chillian: The people that I admire are like Liam Neeson and Brendan Gleeson (his co-stars in Breakfast on Pluto), who manage to work in those big studio movies and yet come back and make very intelligent, very worthwhile smaller films.

Cillian: I think there's such a thing, as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform.

Cillian: My wife can see always how a part affects me personally because she has to live with it.

Cillian : The best roles you have to fight for. You have to really want to do it and you have to go after it.

Cillian : It's obvious that if you're going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they're in and use as little or as much as necessary.

Cillian : I have a deepening respect for women. It's a lot of pain. The plucking of the eyebrows is the worst. It gets better. The first time is hard.

Cillian : I don't have a burning passion to live in America per se but I would certainly like to work there.

Cillian : And in film and TV, I try to base it on the words on the page and the people involved, not so much commercial reasons.

Cillian: Journalists have a myopic view of your versatility. They're like 'You only play the creep'.

Cillian: I've a very, very close-knit group of friends from Ireland. They and my family are the most important things to me.

Cillian: Today I pick and choose my films very carefully. There's nothing I've done so far that I can't talk about with commitment and passion.

Cillian: If you behave like a celebrity, then people will treat you like a celebrity, and if you don't, they won't. There's not much to write about me in the tabloids.

Cillian: Yeah, I suppose slightly more people now can pronounce my name. It's all about recognition, isn't it? I have a funny cognizance of the fact that Hollywood is about commerce and art; it's an uncomfortable mixture of the two. People aren't going to put you in a movie unless people know who you are, and if your movie made $80 million, people will go 'Hey, we'll put him in a movie.' It isn't necessarily about the performance, so yeah, that was great and it means you get to read scripts and meet people that you wouldn't have done in the past.

Cillian:I'd probably have been wealthier if I had stayed with law, but pretty miserable doing it.

Cillian: That's what acting is about, ... Funny wigs and voices, that's what we do.

Cillian:You know, I'll get recognized when I go for a cup of coffee. I've been working a lot, so I haven't really noticed things changing, or anything different about my life. Yeah, people recognize me, and it's all very sweet and very nice, but it's not an imposition in any way. In fact in London, where I live, everybody leaves me alone. Nobody recognizes me. That's the way I'd like to keep it.

Cillian:You don't have to identify with a character to play them, you just have to understand. There's a difference, I think, between identifying with and understanding?

Cillian:I suppose I tend to like slightly darker things -- people have levelled that on me before and I accept that because in my opinion, if I mention the best movies or the best books, there's always something that's involving slightly darker element of out psyche. I like seeing people under pressure. I like seeing what happens to people when they're under pressure.

Cillian:I didn't start acting until I was 20. I wanted to be a musician. I've been playing in bands for years and years and years. It was obviously the performance in me. I loved movies as a teenager, always loved, loved films, but I never thought I'd be involved, which was obviously an insane idea. It was theatre that was the main attraction to me, so I did a lot of theatre.

Cillian: I mean, I loved Batman, but I had no broad knowledge. Thus I read the Comics and with Chris concerning the appearance of Scarecrow conversed much. About what I may not speak for the moment.

Cillian: I just think about the roles and if people like the films, that's great. I don't think about it strategically, really

Cillian: I don't know if anyone will ever sit beside me on a plane again. - on his role as a terrorist in "Red Eye

Cillian: My life is pretty good right now, I'm pretty happy. I suppose being away from home or being separated from my wife is difficult, but I'm going to take a break next year and just stop for a while.

Cillian: I like being at home with my music and my books. I've done all the partying, I've done enough partying for four or five people as a young fella. But now I like the quiet life.

Cillian (comparing Hollywood to Ireland): It's a one-industry town, but I think you can smell it from a mile away when people are telling you what they think you want to hear. I don't care. I don't care if you hate this movie, I don't care if you think I'm s**t. I'm confident in what I do and I know I'm a good actor.

Cillian (on being compared to Colin Farrell): I don't look like Colin Farrell, I don't behave like Colin Farrell and I do different movies than Colin Farrell. I like him, he's a good actor and I've worked with him.

Cillian (on playing a transvestite in 'Breakfast On Pluto'): I think it's interesting. I want something to challenge myself and I don't want to do the same thing over and over – that would be boring. Why do that?

The Scarecrow: There is nothing to fear, but fear itself!