It's been a while since I have gone on about Cillian Murphy, the man who held my heart for the majority of late last year. So yeah, he's the next subject for my "5 reasons", as seen with the Amy Adams post I did last week.
1. Those blue eyes.
It's pretty much impossible not to love Cillian Murphy's eyes. They're like the ocean sparkling under the sun on a warm, summery day. In fact, no similie can sum up the beauty of his eyes. So I'm not even going to try describe them in any other way.
I will say, though, that I'm sure his eyes are 95% of the reason why I keep crying at the end of
Inception because Wally Pfister captures them in the most beautiful way.
2. You name it, he's probably tried it.
Cillian isn't an actor who likes to play the same sort of roles. He isn't the type of actor that you 'expect' things from. Cillian has been one of the last people surviving in a horror movie (
28 Days Later...); he has tried to save the world (
Sunshine); he's been forced to break up his father's company through a dream (
Inception); he's played a psycho nutter direct from a comic book (
Batman Begins and
The Dark Knight); he has played a guy who spends most of his life dressing like a girl (
Breakfast on Pluto); he dressed as a girl in oder to play a deranged man with split personalities (
Peacock); he was the calm one in crisis (
TRON: Legacy); he's been a dazed romantic lead (
Watching the Detectives); he terrorized Rachel McAdams on a plane (
Red Eye); he fought against his brother for Ireland's freedom (
The Wind that Shakes the Barley); he turned cold and distant after returning from the war (
The Edge of Love); he was a sympathetic man during a war (
Cold Mountain); and he even learnt how to butcher meat, even though he is really a vegetarian (
Girl with a Pearl Earring). Need any more proof?
3. He's a very pretty girl.
Cillian has donned the girly clothing twice on film: first for
Breakfast on Pluto (which he was nominated for a Golden Globe for) and then for the little seen thriller
Peacock. First of all, Cillian is very good at playing the part of a girl. In
Breakfast on Pluto, he's very flamboyant and doesn't take himself - or the world - very seriously. But that's just the part of Patrick 'Kitten' Braden, who had a colourful outlook on life, no matter what kind of bad stuff is happening. In
Peacock, however, he's at the other end of the spectrum. Here he plays a man, John, who the small town get to know as a very private banker, who is a little odd and frayed around the edges. But when he gets home, he deals with his other personality, Emma, who ends up controlling John's life. Where Kitten was out-going and flamboyant, Emma/John were mainly just left in their house, living their private lives, and neither of the personalities wanted their secret to be revealed. And let's be honest, Cillian can play these strange parts amazingly. It also helps that he actually suits looking girly, too.
4. How strange he is in Watching the Detectives
The movie itself is pretty mediocre, but if you look at the rest of Cillian's filmography, you'd think that a romantic comedy would be something he'd steer clear from. No, not Sir Cillian. He basically plays my dream guy: he works at a video shop which has every single video/DVD ever created, he knows lots about movies and he also goes into another video shop and swaps all the cases and DVDs around. Cillian really lets go in this movie and basically makes the two dimensional role of a confused lovesick puppy actually work, to a degree. It's strange to watch him being so funny, but jeez, if you get a minute, Cilly, can you do another romantic comedy? Cheers mate.
5. He continues to be the underrated gem, and it's good that way.
Yes, Cillian has had a career spanning around ten years, and yes, he has been awesome for a very long time. But there are only a select few who know that and are behind Cillian's every move (which would be me, since I watched a large majority of his filmography in a week), and we all know that he's one of the best actors alive. However, Cillian is a modest guy, who will always pick the strangest projects to work with and he will make them work. People will keep misunderestimating him and continue to ignore some Oscar-worthy performances (like the ones he did in
Peacock or maybe even
The Edge of Love, even though that movie was pretty disappointing). But that's okay, because it's underrated actors like him who make the world go 'round.
What are your thoughts on Cillian Murphy? Got any favourite performances of his?
