- The challenge should be to try and play
as diverse characters as possible.
It would get boring for the audience
and for the actor if you played
characters that were similar all the time.
What I want is to work with people with strong visions.
They do this crazy thing now more for boys and girls,
they do this chemistry test.
That's the most absurd thing in the world to me.
I don't know, sometimes you feel
like a total waste of space really
when you look at people who have proper jobs.
And then you go, "What am I doing?"
- Hello Believe Nation, it's Evan.
My one word is believe and I believe in people
more than they believe in themselves
and my sincere hope is that if you see
in yourself what I see in you,
you'll be able to change the planet.
So to help you on your journey,
today we're going to learn from actor Cillian Murphy
and my take on his top ten rules to success.
Rule number seven is my personal favorite
and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best.
Also as you're watching, if you hear something
that really resonates with you,
please leave it down in the comments below
and put quotes around it so other people
can be inspired by it as well.
And if you leave it within the first couple hours
of this video going live, you have a chance
to win one of two daily prizes.
(air swooshes)
(dramatic music)
- The challenge should be to try and play
as diverse characters as possible.
It would get boring for the audience
and for the actor if you played
characters that were similar all the time.
- [Bird] Hop one, hop two, hop one, two, three.
Tish tish tish, flap flap, flap.
- We're actors, we're supposed to be able to
inhabit different characters, that's our job.
That's what acting should be surely.
It could be action flick, ain't it?
(pop music)
I'm Cillian Murphy and I'm an actor, I suppose.
- Cillian I've also heard you say that
one of your happiest places is on set
when you hear the word action.
Why?
- I mean if I'm in the film obviously.
(laughter)
- We're like hiding, watching.
- Otherwise it's just awkward for everyone involved.
- Isn't that Cillian Murphy?
What's he doing here?
He's just watching.
- He'll leave soon. - He's happy now.
- Yeah well it is.
It's that thing where that's the moment
you've been looking forward to building up towards.
And it is true to say that time
kind of slows down and you stop sensing things
in kind of a normal way and I love it.
It's my favorite part of the whole thing,
it's the thing you kind of live for.
- What was the hardest scene or moment
for you as an actor this season on the show?
- The whole thing is challenging due to
the nature of the schedule.
It's a very talk-y show, there's a lot of dialogue
and there's a lot of big scenes for Tommy.
This season particularly, there was a lot of
trauma that he had to endure.
I don't know man, I love doing it.
I love the big scenes, I love working with Helen McCrorey,
I love working with Paul Anderson,
I love working with Tom Hardy.
I relish those big scenes, those confrontational scenes,
they're very very satisfying for an actor
when you get that caliber of acting ops.
You always go home from work going,
"Wow, I went to work today."
- So this would be, I'm trying to think now,
is this your third or fourth film with Christopher Nolan?
- Well people are saying fifth
but I only pop up in the Batman thing a little bit.
What you want as an actor, or certainly what I want
is to work with people with strong visions.
And you can't find anybody with a stronger
vision than Christopher Nolan.
He's written, produced and directed this thing
and it's kind of phenomenal.
It is still collaborative.
We spent a lot of time on the phone
talking about this character,
talking about how to pitch it and he just
kind of left me off to go and do my research
and then bring my research to him and say,
"Look, I thought this, this and this
"might be appropriate, so what do you think?"
So yeah, there is absolutely scope to collaborate
but you want to work with someone who is that.
- [Interviewer] That'll guide you?
- Yeah or just has, he knows exactly
every frame of the film as he's shooting it
which is so comforting.
It's a real privilege to work with him every time.
There's no argument that he's one of the
greatest directors around at the moment.
I think everyone accepts that.
So as an actor, selfishly you want to work
with the best people and he's definitely one of those.
But every relationship between a director
and an actor should be collaborative.
They're the boss and they're the leader
but it has to be an exchange of ideas all the way.
I just was realizing that I was really
into performing and I wasn't quite sure.
Live performance.
I really like playing the guitar and singing
and I really like acting on stage.
This director of a theater company
came in and worked with us for
over the course of a few months
and I loved it and I thought he was the
coolest guy ever, I developed a huge man crush on him.
And then I'd see him out in Cork drinking
in pubs and things and I was like,
"You got to give me an audition for a play."
So he gave me an audition and it was for
this play called Disco Pigs.
And it became quite successful.
We made the play then we made the film.
We man and woman now.
We lil' barbers no more.
That kind of changed everything really.
I had never ever envisaged ever being in a film
or being on television or anything like that.
I wanted to be a theater actor.
That's what I saw happening when I decided to go for it.
I moved to London and started to get
slightly bigger parts.
I did this film called 28 Days Later.
Hello!
People saw that film, people saw it in America
and that definitely was a marker as well
because I was working with Danny Boyle
and it was the lead part.
(door creaks open)
(man gags)
Father?
(man gags)
(bag smacks priest)
Aw I shouldn't have done that.
I was really aware of the script being fantastic
and Danny being Danny and I really, really
worked at the auditions.
I did like five auditions.
And auditioning is a terrible, terrible experience
because you're not giving a performance,
it's a different skill, not one that I'm very good at
or was very good at.
Danny saw something and took a chance
and that is a film I'm very proud of
and for some reason it resonated with people
and people went to see it.
So that's where people began to attempt
to pronounce my name.
(giggles)
And have been attempting ever since.
- [Interviewer] And you're both actors who
both tend to star in more dramatic roles than comedic ones.
Is that a conscious decision as an actor
or is it literally the scripts that come in,
the ones that you like are the ones with those roles?
- Yes actually. - Yeah.
- It tends to be that.
I love watching comedies or whatever
but the films that I really, really,
the ones that are close to my heart I guess
are the dramatic ones.
Generally not just films, like pieces of art
and literature and everything,
they tend to be the ones I think where
the stakes are raised.
To me that is drama.
The greater the stakes, the greater the drama.
And that to me is more compelling to watch
and that's I guess the sort of
material that I'm drawn to.
It's always a gamble, that casting thing.
In fact they do this crazy thing now
more for boys and girls, they do this
kind of chemistry test.
That's the most absurd thing in the world to me.
How can you manufacture that?
It's some weird alchemy, you can't.
It's just there or it isn't there.
It was the same for me.
We went for dinner, it happened that
myself and my wife were obsessed with
The Fall at the time and I was like.
He did such an incredible job and I love that show
and then we just met and it just seemed to work.
And there's a similar sense of humor
and a similar approach to work as Jamie said.
I forgot how intense that film is,
it doesn't really let up.
So we had to, the three of us together,
we managed to make the atmosphere on set
quite an enjoyable one despite everything else.
And I think again, it's to Sean's testament.
That's the wrong word but Sean should take the credit
for the fact there was families around
and it was a very, very lovely environment
to work in and we had fun.
And I think you have to.
You're lucky to be working on such a good project.
You can't go around all sort of sad and intense.
You've got to get through the day.
I don't know, sometimes you feel like
a total waste of space really when
you look at people with proper jobs.
And then you go, "What am I doing flouncing around,
"putting on voices and dressing up?"
But people need to go to the pictures
and people need some sort of escape.
Artists don't let people down like
politicians let people down,
bankers let people down.
The quality of the work might fluctuate
but they keep making it, they keep trying
and they keep giving some sort of succor I think.
Kind of over payed and there's a huge amount of
stupidity and hot air that surrounds it all
and a lot of that I don't subscribe to
but I think sometimes a film can change someone's life.
If you can do that through a piece of art then that's
like you're giving something important back.
You have to learn from each job you do as an actor.
You're constantly learning and it's an
ongoing learning process really.
But this is unique for me certainly
in having to develop a character
over a long period of time and sort of
grow with the character, I've never done that before.
And I suppose to have the confidence in going
that once you've established it
and people have invested in it to a degree,
then you can be brave.
So I suppose to try to take that from it
is a thing you can actually be brave with the character
and take it places that you mightn't have
necessarily thought of at the beginning.
There's such an amount of resources out there
for an actor nowadays, you can research everything.
And I think that is your duty to do that.
But again, with every role, I try to do
as much research as possible, to have it all available
and once you've done that, kind of leave it behind
because you have to focus on the truth of the character
and you have to make the character
as believable as possible.
- In terms of research, were there any
performances that you drew upon?
Was there any kind of film or theater or play
or anything like that that you've watched
or drew upon to give you a sense of the character?
- I don't really go to other performances
for inspiration really.
I did a lot of research about soldiers
that had shell shock and that was what
sort of informed mostly.
- On that, what did you do?
Did you meet with PTSD survivors or?
- No I didn't, I mean I wanted to try and sort of,
because there's a lot about it nowadays
but back then they didn't have a clue,
they didn't really know how to treat it
and the symptoms were so bizarre.
I read about this one soldier who
actually went blind for no physiological reason
other than the trauma made him blind.
So that was the power of what they had seen.
So you kind of have to interpret it
as sensitively and as carefully as you can.
It's very clear that this is a damaged guy
who's violence is a form of expression for him.
That's a big distance to travel for me
as well to get to that.
And he's the most sort of capable person I've ever played.
And that's not me either.
- How much did you pay for the suit you'll be wearing?
- Oh I don't pay for suits.
My suits are on the house or the house burns down.
You're inhabiting this character all the time.
It effects you in a subliminal way.
It effects you by osmosis.
But I'm not very aware of it,
it's only people that are around you
that are more aware of it.
Like my wife will be aware of when I'm playing him I think.
But I'll come back until I see (mumbles) were good.
You have to concentrate a lot.
And he talks a lot.
Smokes a lot of fags and is constantly
fighting so he's exhausting.
♫ The ceiling is moving
♫ Moving in time
I thought it was a terrible idea at the beginning
to put contemporary music on a period show.
I thought that was silly.
But then it just seemed to work
because the artist that they chose were
these kind of outlaw artists and that seemed to work.
('Red Right Hand' by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
For me it was huge that Nick Cave had to watch it
and say, "Yeah I'll give you my music for it."
So the fact that he had actually watched it
was a big deal for me.
- Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because George Sid asked me to.
If there's someone you'd like me to profile
in the future top ten, please check out
the link down in the description below
and you can cast your vote on who we should do next.
I also want to give a quick shout out to Pedro Colon.
Pedro thank you so much for picking up
the audio version of my book, Your One Word.
You said that you didn't expect it to be
such an amazing book so I'm glad we were
able to over deliver on those expectations.
But I really appreciate you sharing that
on Twitter with your audience as well.
It really means a lot to me and
I'm glad you enjoyed the book.
Thank you guys again for watching.
I believe in you.
I hope you continue to believe in yourself
and whatever your one word is, much love,
I'll see you soon.
(air swooshes)