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“Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy rips into his 2005 movie “Red Eye” in GQ magazine’s latest March cover story.
“I love Rachel McAdams and we had fun making it,” Murphy told GQ. “But I don’t think it’s a good movie. It’s a good B movie.”
In the psychological thriller, directed by Wes Craven, Murphy plays Jackson Rippner, who’s seated next to Lisa Reisert (McAdams) on a red-eye flight from Dallas to Miami — and whose evil terrorist intentions are revealed once the plane takes off when he tells her he’s going to assassinate the US deputy head of Homeland Security.
“When I was a younger actor, I was really, really hard on everything that I was in,” said Murphy (“Peaky Blinders”). I hated watching myself. I hated looking at myself on-screen.
“I remember when I saw [‘Red Eye’] It was like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of a schlocky B movie.’ Rachel McAdams is excellent in it,” he said. “But I didn’t think I gave a very nuanced performance in it.
“But listen, if people love the movie then that’s great,” he went on. “I’m pleased with that. I’m less hard on myself now when I look at stuff.
“I’m less hypercritical of my work. But that’s probably a hangover from that, to be honest.”
But, he added, there was one element about his role in “Red Eye” that caught his attention.
“I think it’s the duality of it. It’s why I wanted to play it. The two thing,” he explained. “The nice guy and the bad guy in one . . . The only reason it appealed to me is you could do that. That turn, you know?”
Murphy’s interview with GQ, which hits newsstands Feb. 27 — and is titled “Cilllian Murphy Is the Man of the Moment” — covers a lot of ground as the actor talks about his life and career.
At one point, he mentions why he won’t take photos with fans.
“I don’t do photos,” he noted. “Once I started doing that it changed my life. I just think it’s better to say hello, and have a little conversation. I tell that to a lot of people, you know, actor friends of mine, and they’re just like: ‘I feel so bad.’
“But you don’t need a photo record of everywhere you’ve been in a day.”
He also commented on receiving director Christopher Nolan’s script for “Oppenheimer” — which is nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including a nod for Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer — that was printed on red paper in the fall of 2021.
“[The red paper] is supposedly photocopy proof,” Murphy told GQ. “Part of it has to do with keeping the story secret before it goes out. But part of it has to do with tradition. They’ve always done it this way, so why stop now?
“It does add a ritual to it, which I really appreciate,” he said. “It suits me.”
Murphy went on to describe what life was like on the “Oppenheimer” set.
“When I’m on a Chris set, it does feel a little bit like a private, intimate laboratory,” he said. “Even though he works at a tremendous pace, there’s always room for curiosity and finding things out, and that’s what making art should be about, you know?
“There’s no phones — but also no announcement: Everybody just knows,” he continued. “And there’s no chairs. Because he doesn’t sit down. Sometimes a film set can be like a picnic. Everyone’s got their chairs and their snacks and everyone’s texting and showing each other f – – king, you know, emojis or whatever, memes, which I do know,” he said, alluding to a meme of Murphy not knowing what a meme is.
“But why?”
Murphy is happy making one movie a year — and is happy to be “unemployed” while he waits for the right film to come along.
“The majority of my buddies are not in the business. I also love not working,” he said. “And I think for me a lot of research as an actor is just f – – king living, and, you know, having a normal life doing regular things and just being able to observe, and be, in that sort of lovely flow of humanity.
“If you can’t do that because you’re going from film festival to movie set to promotions . . . I mean that’s The Bubble. I’m not saying that makes you any better or less as an actor, but it’s just a world that I couldn’t exist in.
“I would find it very limiting on what you can experience as a human being, you know?”
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