Cillian Murphy: “Christopher Nolan? I trust him absolutely”

Meeting with one of the actors from Dunkirk, who has since reunited with the filmmaker for Oppenheimer.

At 9:05 pm, France 3 will rebroadcast Dunkirk. ​​Having met in March 2017, the angular-faced Irishman Cillian Murphy knows a thing or two about Christopher Nolan. This war film was their fifth collaboration, and they have since returned to success thanks to Oppenheimer, in which Cillian played the leading role for the first time on his home turf.

To keep us going until this evening, we are re-sharing our interview with Cillian, supplemented with other interviews with the actor and the director, who we have met again since.

We don’t even see you in the first five minutes of the film. Who do you play?

It’s going to be complicated: I haven’t seen the prologue that we showed you, and I haven’t even seen the official trailer. Anyway, I don’t really want to talk to you about my role because Chris and I have this kind of agreement that consists of not talking too much about the films beforehand. It’s always better to let the viewer live the experience without knowing what to expect. It’s not even a question of spoilers… I believe the trailer already shows too much.

It’s a choral film, without a real main hero, how do you exist on-screen among this gallery of characters?

I just tried to play my role, to do the job. Chris and I have been working together for many years now. I trust him completely. On Dunkirk, I just waited for his phone call and then we discussed the role. As usual…

Except that here, the film marks a break with his previous works and precisely for the writing of the characters whose past is never mentioned. How did you manage to bring him to life?

The script is like a map…. In front of a Chris film, the spectators see absolutely everything that comes from the script: there are no deleted scenes with him, no reshoots. Everything is shot because he knows exactly what he wants, where he wants to go, and what he wants to show. For this film, I did some research, I read a lot about Operation Dynamo to know the context of these events. I wanted to understand the emotional and psychological stages that the soldiers went through. Not the backstories, but the emotions. I don’t believe in backstories. On the screen you see the characters, this one is a kid, that one a soldier and the other a general… No need to know if so-and-so is married and has children or if so-and-so is good at maths! What matters is to be fair, to be true when you play because that’s what makes people believe in it.

There is the trinity Sea-Earth-Sky in the film. Which side are you on?

The sea. It’s funny because in my family, on my mother’s side more precisely, we worked in the merchant navy so I like to be on the ocean. I also filmed in the film Moby Dick by Ron Howard … The only problem is the bad weather but Chris loves that – filming in bad weather. When we were filming Inception, terrible storms came to disrupt the shoot and Chris was never afraid: he is not frightened. Even by the elements ( smile ).

In Peaky Blinders you also play a soldier. Did this experience help you in the composition of your character in Dunkirk ?

I have played soldiers a few times, yes. Tommy [ Shelby, the character he plays in the series, editor’s note ] is very affected by the First World War. I also played a soldier recently in Anthropoid, a film about the Second. I think I must have played soldier roles five times so far, but each time the challenge is to put yourself in the shoes of the character and go through what he has experienced. Then try to understand the mechanisms and play it as honestly as possible. It is also important to read about post-traumatic shock or shell shock [ a mental disorder that some soldiers suffered from in the trenches during the First World War, editor’s note ] to perfect the character.

When researching Operation Dynamo, did you try to relate to a real character?

Not really… There are no real historical figures in the film, just anonymous, ordinary soldiers. I read letters and logs to immerse myself, but that’s all.

You filmed in the same conditions, on the same beach, and at the same time as this conflict, how did that make you feel?

My part is different from that of the other actors and was filmed exclusively in Holland. Everything takes place on a boat, a Moonstone and the scenes were not shot in Dunkirk. That said, I went there to see what it was like. It’s strange. Life has resumed its rights: people walk around with their children or their dogs… There is no pilgrimage or sanctuary and yet, you can still feel what happened: the blood that was shed, the bombs that streaked the sky… It’s a bit of a crazy place.

Does World War II ring a bell?

I’m not a history buff, but I’m interested in stories. World War II was a global war and all nations were involved. There was Nazism, Adolf Hitler, and fascism… I feel like we knew clearly who the bad guys were and who the good guys were. Today it’s more complicated… We control little computers that kill people remotely… Everything is mechanized. It’s probably hindsight that makes that possible, but World War II is much easier to describe because we see the moral stakes in a much clearer and sharper way.