Sunshine Easter egg + donation thanks

12 March 2007 at 11:56 PM | by Melty_Girl

Capa web Easter egg
See all the caps of Capa

The CillianSite Collective is really feeling the love tonight. We just received a second, very generous donation! Thank you celticgrl for helping us pay the bills and keep this site ad free.

In other site news, I just uploaded some screen captures from SunshineDNA.com's Explore portal. Enter the sleeping quarters, click the twenty dollar bill and Sputnik 2 postcard, and an Easter egg of Capa pops up.

Auction + thanks + Harvest time for Barley + too pretty for science?

12 March 2007 at 03:34 PM | by Lilith

Sunshine auction coming soon!

Breaking news straight from Gia's Sunshine blog: You can get your hands on some of the actual props used in Sunshine! The online auction starts 5 April, and Gia says it will include a full-size spacesuit—get your credit card handy!

Special thanks

Mad props to Julia for her incredibly generous donation towards our site costs. This is a HUGE help and we send our sincere thanks!

Cillian Murphy in the Wind That Shakes the Barley
See the full-size photo

Barley reviews are rolling in

The North American opening of Barley means a bumper crop of reviews for our press archive. Not surprisingly, it's getting a bit different reception this side of the Atlantic, although reviewers are quick to mention the vitriol spouted from right-wing critics in Britain. But as Cillian himself remarked, publicity's never a bad thing, right?

By the way, I missed the New York Times review from March 4th. If anybody has a subscription, we'd love to get a copy for the archive.

Also, don't miss the screencaps that Pierspaul grabbed from that great Barley interview on IESB.net.

Hard to believe

continued...

Thanks to IrishIndieChick for the Melbourne Sunshine tip!

Love Song fan gallery + N.Y. Daily News feature

12 March 2007 at 02:19 AM | by Melty_Girl

Cillian Murphy in the N.Y. Daily News
See the full-size photo

This a lovely photo, yeah? It's from today's Daily News in New York, where Cillian's been doing press for The Wind That Shakes the Barley. He told reporter Ethan Sacks,

"I want to do this job for however long I exist on this planet. I have a lot more to learn. And I have a lot more to prove."

Speaking of lovely photos, we just received one from Kerry, who snapped Cillian's picture outside a preview showing of Love Song in November. This prompted us to create a new gallery page for Love Song fan photos in our Cillian Encounters section. So if you took photos outside the New Ambassadors Theatre door when Cillian was signing autographs, we invite you to your additions for this gallery. We'll credit all the photographers for their pics.

Thanks for contributing your photo, Kerry!

Two leading American film critics review Barley

11 March 2007 at 11:53 PM | by Melty_Girl

Cillian Murphy in The New Yorker
See the full-size illustration

David Denby in The New Yorker

Esteemed film critic David Denby reviews The Wind That Shakes the Barley in the 19 March issue of The New Yorker. Calling it "a beautifully realized work and perhaps Loach’s best film," Denby hones in on Loach's unfailingly honest look at violence, never stylized and choreographed like in so many films today. Of Cillian, Denby writes:

Cillian Murphy, with his full lips and fine-boned face—he was the charming, sinister seducer in the neat little thriller Red Eye and the sweet cross-dresser in Breakfast on Pluto—might seem to be an odd choice for a revolutionary, but the point about Damien is that he’s a mild man who has been groomed for a refined life ... only to get dragged into war. Murphy is normally very quiet in movies; he has attained his mystique as an actor by staring at people with baby-blue eyes. [Here too he has] a deep stillness, but he has idiosyncratic moments as well, such as when Damien has to execute a teenager who has ratted on the I.R.A. Murphy, writhing, shoots the boy and stumbles away, nausea struggling against duty.

Andrew Sarris in The New York Observer

continued...

Release dates and pics + Star Ledger feature + Perez Hilton

11 March 2007 at 01:03 AM | by Melty_Girl

Barley's U.S. release dates

N.Y.C, L.A., Boston, and a few other lucky cities finally get The Wind That Shakes the Barley on Friday, and the regrettably limited release begins hitting selected theatres throughout March, April, and May. Check IFC Films.com for all release date info.

Sunshine movie poster
See more Sunshine stills

Sunshine movie poster
See more posters

Sunshine dates and pics

Shhh... before the Sunshine Blog's Gia had to take down the list of Sunshine's international release dates, I plugged them into The CillianSite Calendar. So unless we are asked to remove them, you can find them here!

I also added a new Sunshine still and a quad format poster.

Star-Ledger ...and Perez Hilton?!?

Today's Star-Ledger has a Barley-focused article on Cillian with some nice Loach-Murphy commentary on each other and the process. Cillian hits many of his usual themes, but this one kicks off with a pithy quip:

"Success isn't employment, but a lot of actors confuse the two. For me, success isn't how often you work, but the quality of work. I think if ... you have other interests and you're able to kick around the house for a bit and wait for the right thing, that's good."

Speaking of differing indices of success, here's one measure of Cillian's fame: a fairly idiotic Perez Hilton "Guess That Pucker" appearance. Apparently, Cillian may die if not issued lip balm forthwith.

Thanks to Dern for the IFCFilms dates and to IrishIndieChick for the Sunshine pics!

Keira's future husband doing press from L.A. to N.Y.C. + London Sunshine contest

10 March 2007 at 05:04 AM | by Melty_Girl

Cillian Murphy in L.A.
Cillian in The L.A. Times (Tapia-Andersen)

Much to report in our premiere news blog entry:

  • A potential new film project for Cillian
  • A feature story on Cillian in The Los Angeles Times
  • A silly Defamer sighting in Los Angeles
  • An N.Y.C. screening of The Wind That Shakes the Barley
  • A Sunshine preview contest for Londoners AND ...
  • A Sunshine-related interview from ComingSoon.net.
  • Plus: our site's first affiliate!

Will Cillian Play Keira Knightley's Husband?

Just when I was selfishly worrying that Cillian was taking more time off, The Daily Mail reports that he is in talks for a new film role: the jealous husband of Keira Knightley in John Maybury's The Best Time of Our Lives, a film about two women loved by poet Dylan Thomas. Welsh actor Matthew Rhys, who currently plays gay sibling Kevin on the TV show Brothers and Sisters, will star as Thomas, with Lindsay Lohan as wife Caitlin. Baz Bamigboye writes, "When I bumped into Mr. Rhys in Los Angeles recently he mumbled something about three-in-a bed scenes." I guess Cillian's character has reason to be jealous! Shooting starts in May in Wales.

This week in L.A.: Cillian, Tommy Lee, and Kiefer

continued...

Welcome to The CillianSite!

9 March 2007 at 03:02 PM | by Lilith

Welcome!

We're proud to announce the launch of our new fansite dedicated to the work of the outstanding actor Cillian Murphy. Please make yourself at home here—get an in-depth look at Cillian's career in our Bio and Body of Work sections, find out what music gets him going and learn about Kitten's world in our special Extras features, check out some lucky fans' encounters with our favourite actor in our Fandom section, and come back often for the latest news updates.

We've put a lot of work into making The CillianSite a comprehensive resource for all things Cillian—we hope you enjoy it!

Cheers!
The CillianSite Collective

Heartfelt thanks to Zap for providing technical assistance!

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Cillian wins Actor of the Year at the 2006 GQ Awards

5 September 2006 at 10:22 PM | by Melty_Girl

Cillian Murphy and Kelly MacDonald
See more GQ Awards images

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

News.com.au is the first online outlet to break the news that Cillian just won Actor of the Year at Britain's GQ Man of the Year Awards. How exciting to see him recognized for his work in The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Breakfast on Pluto!

Cillian attended the GQ ceremony alongside illustrious winners like Ricky Gervais (Comedian of the Year), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Lab Series Man of the Year), Justin Timberlake (International Man of the Year), and Keane (Band of the Year). Looks like his Intermission co-star Kelly MacDonald may have presented his award.

Thanks to Jackie for the tip on the photos!

Q & A with Cillian in Melbourne on September 14th: buy your tickets now!

2 September 2006 at 08:49 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

Someone called Hel was kind enough to drop by and give us the specifics on the Melbourne Q & A session that Cillian's doing in support of The Wind That Shakes the Barley. The Kino Dendy Cinema boasts, "Meet acclaimed actor Cillian Murphy at our exclusive Q & A and preview screening" of Barley... on "Thursday, 14th September, 6.30 pm."

Call now for tickets at +61 3 9650 2100, because they're selling fast! See the Kino Dendy's locations page for their address and parking info.

Please email me about your experience if you attend!

Thanks to Hel for the tip!

Rubber ducky, version 2

31 August 2006 at 08:08 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

Australian journalist Helen Barlow, whose recent piece in the Courier-Mail mentioned that Cillian squeaked a rubber ducky baby toy during her interview with him in Berlin, is back with another version of the story in the Sidney Morning Herald. Her lead sounds as adoring as something one of us might write:

With blue translucent eyes that dazzle the camera like few others, Cillian Murphy can portray a brooding sensitivity yet be romantic, loveable and downright horrible. He's the hottest acting talent to come out of Ireland since Colin Farrell and he has a lot more range.

Barlow goes on to ask Cillian about The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Australian actor Rose Byrne:

"The fallout from the war of independence and the civil war still resonates today and you realise what side your family was on," Murphy says.

"When my grandfather was playing music with a lot of his buddies underneath a tree and then the Black and Tans [British troops] came along and shot at them randomly, the bullet went into the tree. If he'd been a better marksman I might have not been here. I had a cousin who was killed. Cork was the most militarised area of the country and the rebellion was strongest there."

...During our interview, Murphy squeaks a rubber duck given to him as a present for his baby son. He is hung over, having brought over a gaggle of his mates from Dublin to the Berlin Film Festival. They had rung up quite a bill at his swanky hotel—to the dismay of the Hollywood honchos, who are trying to get him to talk to the press.

Murphy's next big movie is the sci-fi epic Sunshine, in which he is sent to reignite the dying sun. He co-stars with Australia's Rose Byrne. Is there any hanky-panky going on?

"I'm not gonna tell you, but she's brilliant, though. I love Rose. She's a fantastic actress."

Cillian in Australia: public Q & A in Melbourne, Barley premiere in Sidney

29 August 2006 at 07:55 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

Watch out Australian fans: in mid-September, Cillian will be in Melbourne to promote The Wind That Shakes the Barley, and according to the Herald Sun, the press aren't the only ones invited to the party:

Fans will be able to quiz the 30-year-old for details about his life growing up in County Cork when he takes part in a question-and-answer session amid his promotional work for new flick The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Details of where and when the mid-September talkfest will be are still to be announced. Murphy... will also appear at a premiere in Sydney.

If you go to the Q & A, be sure to let us know how it goes!

Rubber ducky, you're the one + Australian coverage of Barley flap

25 August 2006 at 07:45 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

Another Australian profile has appeared in Brisbane's Courier-Mail, again based on an interview done at the Berlinale. Here's some fun excerpts from Helen Barlow's article:

The biggest acting name since Colin Farrell in Ireland and about as different from that actor as chalk is from cheese, Murphy is settled in his personal life but is far more adventurous in his movies. ...During this interview, Murphy, married to installation artist Yvonne McGuinness, squeaks a rubber duck that has been given to him as a present for their baby son. Later it emerges he was hung-over, having flown in some Dublin friends to his new film's Berlin Festival screening.

...Murphy used some fairly outrageous women's clothes for the film, which has been likened to Transamerica in its more humane twist on gender-bending. But, he says, it all came down to the story.

"A lot of the recent gay-themed movies, like Capote and Brokeback Mountain, were inspired by novels and I think that says a lot," he notes. "It's very healthy that in America these themes are being embraced."

Did he try on his wife's underwear to get into the character?

"No I didn't," he responds with a cheesy grin. "You couldn't model it on your wife—that would be weird."

Also from Down Under: a feature on Ken Loach and the British controversy over The Wind That Shakes the Barley in The Australian.

Director Paul Soter talks Detectives at the Beerfest premiere

23 August 2006 at 10:37 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

In a red carpet interview videotaped at the premiere of his comedy troupe Broken Lizard's new movie Beerfest, Paul Soter offered a tidbit about the plan for Watching the Detectives and waxed rhapsodic about his gorgeous stars to About.com. Interviewer Rebecca Murray spoke with Soter about Beerfest, then changed the subject:

About.com: You've got Watching the Detectives too, right?

Soter: Yes, I just wrapped that two weeks ago. I'm very excited. I see the first assembly cut a day after tomorrow. And hopefully we'll be at Sundance this year, and it's a great movie. Cillian and Lucy [Liu] were both funny and sexy—[responds to interviewer's off-camera facial expression] I know! They're both—put them onscreen together and like, the bone structure is just... it's like, distracting. Like, I'm going to have to figure out some way that people aren't just going to stare at their jawlines. It's incredible, yeah, so...

About.com: You're hoping for Sundance?

Soter: That's the plan. You know, they've always been big supporters of our movies and so we have a good relationship, and it's, you know, it's a mainstream comedy, but it's very stylish. It's a film lover's movie, so I feel like Sundance would be the best place for it. So I'll keep my fingers crossed, and we'll see what happens.

The Sundance Film Festival is held annually in January, although films are often put into general release months later.

Date for the gala premiere of Barley at TIFF!

21 August 2006 at 10:49 AM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

MonstersAndCritics.com has the first mention I've seen of a specific date and venue for the North American premiere of The Wind That Shakes the Barley at the Toronto International Film Festival: September 7th, at the Ryerson Theatre. Anne Brodie reports that "[Ken] Loach and Murphy are expected to attend." Will you be there too?

For more info about Barley screenings, keep your eyes peeled to the official TIFF site schedule page. Tomorrow, they will release the gala schedule and complete film list, and on August 29th, they will publish the complete schedule for the fest.

Writer/director Paul Soter reveals more about Watching the Detectives

21 August 2006 at 10:42 AM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

SuicideGirls.com has a Q & A with writer/director/actor-comedian Paul Soter about Watching the Dectectives, and it boasts more plot information. Here's some of how Soter described the movie:

Cillian plays this guy who runs his own mom and pop video store. He is a couch potato and film noir buff and a guy who would rather be watching a baseball game than playing in a baseball game. Lucy Liu is this character who shows up in the store and has the exact opposite philosophy. Her feeling is, if you like movies and you like adventure, then that's the way you should live. You shouldn't sit around and watch movies where people get in trouble and chase people. You should just live that way. So it's wish fulfillment gone crazy. Lucy embodies a character that really threatens to destroy Cillian's life because it's hardly possible to live your life as if you were in a movie.

Lucy's... constantly trying to keep him on unstable footing so she told him that there's this bald unpredictable violent ex-boyfriend who chases her from town to town whenever she moves. Now he's seeing big bald guys everywhere. He goes out to get a newspaper and there's a bald guy out there. He goes in the video store and there's a bald customer that's very suspicious. Today we're shooting him in a movie theatre and there's a guy sitting behind him, a big obnoxious bald guy. It ends up being Cape Fear with that idea of the big obnoxious guy sitting behind you ruining your good time in the movies. ...This guy loves movies and what this woman is doing to him is turning his life into series of scenes from movies and it sounds like it would be perfect but it starts to really drive him crazy.

It is heavy on the film noir... There is this scene where he gets interrogated by these two detectives and it's a good cop and a bad cop. It's a very classic interrogation from the films of the 40's and 50's. For the most part, these scenes that he ends up getting sucked into have a very film noir feel to them.

Gabriel Byrne talks up Brendan Gleeson's pet project

18 August 2006 at 10:21 AM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

As Shannon blogged here back in March, Irish actor Brendan Gleeson (28 Days Later..., Breakfast on Pluto, Cold Mountain) has adapted the Flann O'Brien book At Swim-Two-Birds for the screen, and if the project gets green-lighted, Cillian wants a role.

Still no definite word on this intriguing project, but today, actor Gabriel Byrne has been touted throughout the Irish press as being "eager to star in a movie that will bring together the cream of Irish screen talent." The Thomas Crosbie wire story dangles these enticing possibilities:

If it gets made, the film will unite Byrne with Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as well as Brendan Gleeson, who has written the screenplay. Director John Boorman has also expressed an interest in the project.

Speaking about the young stars, Byrne, 56, said: "They're talented actors and the whole country is very proud of them. It will be the first time the older generation and the younger generation have come together to do a classic Irish novel."

IFC will distribute The Wind That Shakes the Barley in the US

16 August 2006 at 11:34 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

First, the good news: according to Reuters, IFC Entertainment just bought the US distribution rights for The Wind That Shakes the Barley!

Now, the bad news: just as frequent cillianONLINE commenter Jackie predicted, we're looking at a Spring 2007 release. Reporter Gregg Goldstein does note, however, that "an Oscar-qualifying one-week release for the film is being discussed," which means mid-to-late December.

IFC is releasing Barley as part of IFC First Take, which uses a new, so-called "day-and-date" strategy of releasing films in theaters and on cable at the same time. You may remember that IFC kicked off this somewhat controversial program in March with Steven Soderbergh's fascinating little pic, Bubble. (More info here.) This new practice has caused feuding among entertainment companies, with some refusing to screen each other's day-and-date releases in theaters, but peace talks are currently underway, and Barley is unlikely to get caught in the corporate crossfire over this new business model.

Why is IFC giving Barley a day-and-date release?

"[Barley] could have gone either way" as either a traditional IFC Films theatrical release or as part of the innovative First Take slate, IFC vice president marketing Ryan Werner said. "But it's a great symbol of the kind of prestigious film we want for the program. It shows people that we're not just putting any film in First Take. We also wanted it to reach the widest possible audience."

He added that though the film has done well overseas, [Ken] Loach's films usually don't attract significant business at the U.S. box office, which was another factor in the decision to take the day-and-date route.

This is the good news that Cillian Murphy fans in America have been waiting for! But what about Canada?

Watching the Detectives wraps up + Cillian feature in The Age

12 August 2006 at 10:55 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

Barring reshoots, Watching the Detectives is leaving the New York metro area. MovieWeb.com reports that principal photography has been completed.

In other news, Breakfast on Pluto was just released Down Under, so reviews have been popping up lately. It may have been a bit Northern Hemicentric of me, but I haven't been blogging about these reviews, simply because I think most Cillian fans have read oodles of Pluto reviews by now. But Melbourne's Sunday The Age is running a cool feature story on Cillian. Stephanie Bunbury interviewed him in Berlin, where he shared his usual down-to-earth perspective on the bright lights:

"If you can leave behind one film that people consider art, then I'm happy. Just one." He is ambitious, he says, but not about specific targets. "I don't have a plan. It's about quality of life as well. There is much more to my life then just being an actor, you know. Because this is all a bit crazy. It's not real life, is it?" He waves his hand, brushing away both the Berlin hotel where we are speaking and the whole gilded nonsense of the movies. "Great, but not real life. You just have to insist on that."

Bunbury also got some interesting quotes from Cillian that speak to the difference between transvestites and transgendered women:

Kitten, according to Murphy, was the most difficult role he has played. Damien, his character in The Wind That Shakes the Barley, could be a 1917 version of Murphy himself: quiet, focused, strong-minded. Kitten Braden, on the other hand, is all artifice. Murphy... researched for the role exhaustively. He was about to represent a character whose way of life was a closed book to him. He knew that he would have to transform his every gesture to do it.

"Out of respect for that community, if you are going to portray a member of that community, you need to see what their lives are like," he says. "But I learned more from looking at women, to be honest, because I wanted the character to be feminine, not camp or queenie. She's not doing it for anybody else but herself: it is a form of self-expression. Therefore, it must be organic. There isn't an on and off. She is like that all the time."

The transvestite impulse remains a mystery to him. But that doesn't matter. Ultimately, he says, he doesn't have to share any specific experience of the characters he plays. "All I have to do is understand how the mind works and to not judge. Because everyone can understand pain and the need to feel love. That is a kind of universal need, you know. I come from a close family. To not have a family must be a terrible thing; to not feel secure and feel loved."

But Murphy also came to understand something of the pleasure of dressing as a woman. "It's very nice to look pretty. No matter we tell each other we aren't, everyone's vain. So it's quite nice to look nice. And you get into that—all the products, the grooming, the plucking and shaving. All that stuff becomes part of a routine and it's not unpleasant at all."

More NYC gawking and stalking

9 August 2006 at 10:29 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

Another lucky New Yorker reported a humorous Cillian sighting to Gawker Stalker:

Cillian Murphy
103 Prince St
Aug 8th, 2006 @ 1pm

Saw Cillian Murphy as I was walking out of the SoHo Apple store with a woman (wife?) and child, wearing a Blossom-like hat—Cillian, not the kid. My friend said, "Did you see Jonathan Rhys Meyers with his baby?"

Oh dear. Well, at least the photo Gawker ran wasn't Dr. Crane yet again—he has done more than just Batman Begins, after all. They went with one of the nice Intermission promo pics.

Barley breaks Irish box office record

8 August 2006 at 12:43 PM | by Melty_Girl

[Note: This was originally published by cillianONLINE, which has been inactive since September 2006.]

A Cillian movie has bested a Cillian movie: with a gross of €2.7 million, The Wind That Shakes The Barley now holds the all-time Irish box office record for the highest grossing Irish-made independent film, topping Intermission's €2.5 million. (Source: The Irish Film Board via RTE). In fact, it's the #4 film of the year in Ireland so far, even beating out Mission Impossible III. (Source: Unison.ie.) And as I reported previously, it's director Ken Loach's biggest hit ever. Since its debut at Cannes, this rebellious underdog of a movie just keeps on surprising everyone. Can't wait to see it... But. Will. Have. To.