• Photos • Cannes feature • The Wind That Shakes the Barley review

PREMIERE: I'm going to give my recorder to you because I'm concerned about the noise.

CILLIAN MURPHY: Okay. Sure. It's very noisy, yeah. Will I just leave it here?

In your armpit? [laughs]

[laughs] I don't particularly want to hold it. Okay, I won't leave it in my armpit.

You can leave it in your armpit.

Okay.

So tell me a little about the character you play in Sunshine, which reunites you with 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle.

I had to try and play a physicist. It was very interesting just trying to get into the mind-set of these people. I went over to Geneva to where they're doing this particle accelerator, and they're going to find this stuff called [dark] matter, which they reckon is what caused the big bang. And I hung out with these guys, and they're burdened with an extraordinary intellect, and they're like very serious people. No, I shouldn't say that. I mean, we had fun with them, but they are very aware of the seriousness of their job, which is to discover the meaning of life, basically, through science. And with this character, I wanted him be very... not closed-up emotionally, but aware that there's a bigger thing at stake here, which is the survival of mankind.

Stay up to date on the latest movie news, reviews, and interviews with Premiere's newsletter! Click here to sign up.

For more from Cillian Murphy, check out the feature in the March 2007 issue of Premiere Magazine.

What Cillian Murphy role have you enjoyed the most? The villainous Scarecrow in Batman Begins   14% Flight-from-hell baddie Jackson Rippner in Red Eye   50% Zombie-bait Jim in 28 Days Later   33% Pieter in Girl With a Pearl Earring   2% Bardolph in Cold Mountain   0% TOTAL ENTRIES: 42