Cillian Murphy: It’s an honor that people thought I was playing a zombie in 28 Years Later
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, Cillian Murphy, the Oscar-winning star of Oppenheimer, confirmed in a new interview with The Observer that he is aware many viewers of the trailer for Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later believed he was playing a zombie. The sequel, which premiered this summer, confirmed that the zombie in question was not Jim, Murphy’s character.
Murphy said his son showed him that people assumed he was playing the film’s gaunt zombie: “It’s brilliant that people think I look like the corpse of a zombie. It’s an honor.”
Although Murphy did not appear in 28 Years Later, he served as a producer. He is set to appear in the second installment of the new trilogy, titled 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, directed by Nia DaCosta. Murphy will also play a larger role in the third and as-yet-untitled part of the trilogy.
The Irish actor added in another part of the interview that while portraying the “father of the atomic bomb” in Oppenheimer, he listened to classical music: “It’s not intellectual; it’s emotional. I feel music is the only phenomenon that can connect on that level.”
He continued: “I have no interest in playing characters who seem content on the surface. Firstly, I don’t think they exist. Secondly, we don’t see ourselves in those characters. I believe everyone is struggling with their own bloody battles, to a greater or lesser extent. Everyone wakes up in the morning and thinks: How am I going to get through this? How will I endure this day?”
Murphy’s film Steve premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.
