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Cillian Murphy vs. Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene
Under the Radar
Spring 2007
By Mark Redfern and Marcus Kagler
[Image of article here.]
"How many times have you been accused of being a vampire?" is one example of Broken Social Scene mastermind Kevin Drew's unconventional style of interviewing. Picking the brain of Irish actor Cillian Murphy, a big time Broken Social Scene fan and indie rock aficionado, the Canadian musician gets lessons in acting, Irish history, the art of interviewing, characters named Pussy, and eating Breakfast on Pluto. But, if you boil it down, what Drew really wants to know is how sinister Bryan Ferry really is.
Murphy is best known for braving the zombies of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later..., terrorizing Rachel McAdams in-flight in Wes Craven's Red Eye, looking fabulous and glam in drag in Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto, and portraying super-villain The Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Murphy is currently starring in Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which chronicles the start of the IRA and won the top prize at the Cannes film festival last year. This summer he'll be found saving the world and reigniting the sun in Boyle's much anticipated sci-fi epic Sunshine.
The ever-suave and easy on the eyes actor is more than happy to oblige the barrage of questions. In return, he receives Drew's inside scoop about what's new in the Social Scene, why Feist's next album is a cup of blood, and the details on the first Kevin Drew solo record. Aside from being a musician, Drew is also a budding director, having helmed videos by Broken Social, Stars, and Feist. Under the Radar sets up two indie titans on a blind date that just might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Cillian Murphy: Did we meet before? I think we did, didn't we?
Kevin Drew: Yeah, I was the one that came up to you at our show.
Cillian: That's right, yeah. That was an amazing show, man. And listen, I might just get the embarrassment out of the way. You know, you guys are my favorite band. Like, properly favorite band. So, we'll get that out of the way.
Kevin: [Laughs] Well, thank you. I don't know what to say except I hear that you're a big indie rock fan. So that's why I thought I'd jump at doing this interview with you. Now, can we go into it?
Cillian: Sure man, ask away.
Kevin: Can we just have fun?
Cillian: You know, ask what you want. I'll do my best to answer as best I can.
Kevin: All right, 'cause I'm gonna be silly, because I do this interview stuff all the time and I figure maybe I'll give you a bit of a break.
Cillian: Okay.
Kevin: And I did make some phone calls, I dialed up some European numbers to try to find out some stuff about you.
Cillian: Really? That sounds intriguing.
Kevin: Well, you know. Either way, how many times have you been accused of being a vampire? I've needed to ask you this question for a while.
Cillian: How many times have I been accused of being a vampire? Of being undead? Not that often, actually.
Kevin: No none has really pulled anything out on you or anything like that? You've never found yourself surrounded by crosses at four in the morning or anything?
Cillian: And cloves of garlic and stuff? No, nobody has done that to me yet.
Kevin: But you do have that ageless look about you, but do you get asked about that a lot?
Cillian: About what, the portrait in the attic thing?
Kevin: I don't know, just—the skin, the eyes. It's almost as if you know, we should really talk about your grandparents right away and see where this blood came from.
Cillian: Well, you know, you can't do anything about genes really, can you? You just gotta make the most of them. And it's not something you ever really think about. But now the eye thing, that's in my family. My mom, I suppose, or my grandparents. But I just use them for looking through, you know.
Kevin: And where are you from in Ireland? Because I am actually Irish myself. I have family from Cork. I was, well, I am a McCarthy.
Cillian: Really?
Kevin: Yeah, my mother's side is from Ireland and it's McCarthy and I came from Cork.
Cillian: Yeah, well that's where I'm from, Cork.
Kevin: Well, there we go.
Cillian: Have you been back there?
Kevin: Never been to Cork.
Cillian: And have you toured in Ireland?
Kevin: Yeah.
Cillian: Well, you gotta go to Cork, man.
Kevin: Yes. Now, when I play in Ireland, sometimes I get booed when I say I'm from Cork.
Cillian: [Laughs] Well that depends on where you're playing. Are you playing in Dublin or somewhere?
Kevin: Dublin, yeah. They don't seem to ...
Cillian: There's a big rivalry, because Cork is really the capital of Ireland. It's the biggest county and it's very beautiful. And there's always been that big Dublin-Cork rivalry. But it's a friendly rivalry, I suppose.
Kevin: Brendan [Canning from Broken Social Scene] is Irish as well. Social Scene, is, you know, the two founding members, as they would say, we are Irish.
Cillian: So how many generations back, then?
Kevin: I'm not too sure. I'm not too sure. I know it starts with my grandmother, my mother's mom. And I just think it goes from there.
Cillian: So she came over to Canada then, was that it?
Kevin: No, they moved to England, my father is English.
Cillian: Oh, I see. Right, okay.
Kevin: So, they moved into the Essex county. And then she met my father, who was a raging mod at the time. What is your history in Ireland? Because, when I was over there, Breakfast on Pluto was opening the Irish Film Festival that was happening, one time when we came over there. And you seemed to be the pride of Ireland at the time.
Cillian: [Laughs] Yeah, I go all the way back. In Cork it's all the way back. Like, from farming background I suppose. My dad and his family go all the way back. And my mom. I'm Irish through and through, man. Which, you know, you talk about it because being Irish is, I don't know, people get a bit fuckin' sentimental about it. But for me, you know, it's important, but when you're trying to work as an actor and you're trying to work internationally, you have to ... I'm more interested in playing characters from different places, characters that I have no reference for. And that tends to be more exciting. And I mean I've done a good few Irish films, but I think it's important to always stretch yourself if you can.
Kevin: Breakfast on Pluto caught me completely off guard. I watched it on the road ... and that was just an incredible film. And you were fucking fantastic and unbelievable in that film. That had a wonderful history, had a very Irish history to it, which now is also with The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which I just watched. So this is, I guess, what you were referencing minutes ago.
Cillian: Yeah, I said that I want to go and do other films, and I did go away and do a few American films. And recently again, I've done a couple of more American films. But, those two movies meant a lot to me. Breakfast on Pluto, I'm a big fan of [Patrick] McCabe's writing, you know. Like, The Butcher Boy, and The Dead School. And I remember reading Breakfast on Pluto when it came out and just falling in love with the character and the inventiveness of the writing, the audacity of the writing. It was really, really bold, as is The Butcher Boy. And then I kind of pestered Neil [Jordan, Breakfast on Pluto's director], because he produced a film I was in, and I would kind of harangue him and say, "Look, I'm gonna get too old, and you've gotta make this movie." And then we met this producer who was amazing and came up with the money like, absurdly quickly and then we just made it. You know, I went away and did a lot of preparation for it.
Kevin: What's that like to love a book and then be able to actually play the character that you [love]. I mean, how many years was it between reading it and then playing that role?
Cillian: I think it was published in '98, and then we didn't shoot the film until—God, when was it? The end of 2005? I can't remember. Well, you use the book as your kind of primary source sort of material. But then you have to really just act what's on the page. You can use all the book for the background stuff, and for your own head, but you really got just to be true to the script. And you know there's lots of stuff in the book that didn't make it into the film, and there's lots of stuff in the film we had to change from the book. But I think in essence, it's pretty loyal to the story. I think the character in the book is called Pussy, and [laughs] I think it was felt that ...
Kevin: It wouldn't work.
Cillian: That Kitten was a little more sort of softer [for the character's name]. But Pat McCabe, he was thrilled with the movie, he's in the movie. It's a character I very much love. Still I do think about that character.
Kevin: Well, not to keep sending you compliments, but it was just beautifully performed and you were fantastic. And as you know, I'm a big fan of film. I'm a huge, huge fan of film. And you just sucked me in and I forgot who you were and I did believe you were Kitten. And also we should mention that that was probably cameo of the year, if not the decade, with Bryan Ferry [of Roxy Music].
Cillian: Amazing, huh?
Kevin: Yeah, he was fantastic. As soon as he popped up I thought, "Oh my gosh."
Cillian: That was just genius casting by Neil. He's done that before, I mean he put Sinead [sic] O'Connor in The Butcher Boy.
Kevin: Yeah, I remember.
Cillian: As the Virgin Mary. [Laughs] Which was fantastic. And there's something about Bryan Ferry, which is that sort of attractive menace or something. I don't know what the word is. He had it all the way through Roxy Music and everything. He's just so smooth.
Kevin: You just have to watch the "Slave to Love" video or anything like that. You want to let him in. You believe he's a gentleman through and through.
Cillian: Yeah, but there's something sort of a little sinister lurking there, you know?
Kevin: Yeah. So good, that's what's sinister about it, is how much you want to let him in.
Cillian: Yeah, exactly. [Laughs]
Kevin: Have you been talking about The Wind That Shakes the Barley a lot?
Cillian: Yeah, in fact that's the one I should probably talk about more.
Kevin: Yeah, of course. Well, I don't know, you know. It's very tricky for me. I saw the film, I watched it, I had the flu. So, obviously, its impact was a lot more, but I really, really liked it. Obviously, we're having an interview here, so I'm taking the interview stance because I can do it very easily, because I always mockingly do it, tons of times with the boys. But to talk on a level of interviewer to actor, which I've never really done, I found that it was really beautifully directed.
Cillian: Can I ask you something? Did you ... I don't know how aware or not you were of Irish history. I guess not a huge amount and why would you be? Because it is obviously, it's a political movie. And it's a historical movie. There's a lot of complex historical stuff in there. But I've been kind of keen to promote it as ultimately a human story.
Kevin: Well, that's what it is. What Ken Loach did, so amazingly, is that you're on the outside while you're inside of the film. Like, the way that he filmed it, it's as if you're part of this group.
Cillian: Exactly.
Kevin: And the meetings that you would have, like the scenes in the group halls and the town hall or the courtroom and that fucking actor, whoever played the conductor. Just the way that it was done it was as if there were no rehearsals. I don't know if you rehearsed or anything, but everything came off very naturally.
Cillian: Yeah, well he has a very, very unique method. Basically what it is, is that he has this script that he has with his screenwriter, and it's a very strong piece, but they don't give it to us. So at the beginning of the movie, all I knew is that I was playing a brother, one of two brothers and he was a doctor contemplating going to London to further his studies. And that was it. So when you go in—like, for example the first scene when we were playing hurling, when we go back to the cottage, and then the Black and Tans come like charging—none of us knew that was gonna happen. So all of those reactions are just as they happened. You know, there was nothing contrived about it or premeditated. And so, that continued throughout the film. It lends itself to this kind of instinctual performance, because you experience events as the character does.
Kevin: I don't want it to sound too cheesy, but you saying that, that's what I really felt like. I really felt like it was as if it was just happening, like everything was one take. I could not see you sitting around and rehearsing the way that lines were just stutters and everything. Nothing was, "Do this hear." It was just all so natural.
Cillian: Yeah. It's unbelievably liberating, because generally you get a script a couple of months before the shoot and then you start poring over it and obsessing and just intellectualizing the whole thing. And start making choices that maybe don't have any basis in the story and stuff. But with this, because you don't have any sort of foundation, you just have to just react as it happens. And it's not the most glamorous form of acting. It certainly doesn't lend itself to grandstanding acting or any of that stuff. And that's why you see people tripping over their lines as people do in, as people when we're, like, how we're talking now. And so it's very, very pure. And also he doesn't have any marks on set, he doesn't say action. The camera's always on a long lens, very far away. The crew turns their back on you when you're doing the scene. It's this intensely private thing that's happening between these two actors. Sometimes Ken doesn't even look at you, he just listens. In my estimation, that's how films should be shot. Obviously they can't be.
Kevin: Is that the beginning of the IRA?
Cillian: Yeah, that's like, the genesis, how they were formed.
Kevin: Because you don't get films like that, where I sat there and thought, "I guess this is the beginning of the IRA." The only reason I fucking don't know this, 'cause there's not this huge soundtrack going on in the background, and a slow motion of hands coming together saying, "Today we start." It just was happening as if ... I thought it was very, very, very respectful to the history.
Cillian: Yeah, because if you think about it, it's only two generations ago. My grandfather lived through that. And I had a cousin who, I never was aware of this growing up, but I kind of researched it, and he was shot by the Black and Tans. He was only 17. It's not that far away. And then a civil war, that leaves a deep impact on a nation and a county and all that. So you have to be very, very respectful and very sensitive.
Kevin: And how did it go over?
Cillian: At home? Actually, it was huge. Huge. I mean it was so funny. It opened in Britain and Ireland at the same time. And The Sun newspaper, just this awful trashy paper, I'm sure you're aware of it, The Sun has an Irish edition and a British edition. And the British edition was like, "Pro-IRA terror film!" And then the Irish edition was something like, "Cillian's Boys Rout Brits!" or something like that. So that just kind of shows the difference in how it was received. There was a lot of controversy in Britain, but none of the people that were given [sic] out about the film could contest the facts, because they're a matter of record. This is what happened. And again, the anti-British thing is so easily ... Or you can counter that by saying look, it's not anti-the British fucking nation, it's anti the British government of that time and their policies.
Kevin: Exactly. Like many other Irish films that always seem to just say, "Fucking Brits!"
Cillian: [Laughs] Yeah, but this is an [sic] a lot more sophisticated way.
Kevin: And then of course you look and you go, "Well it happened, it's proven, it's historic and yeah, the fuckin' Brits."
Cillian: Yeah, in this case. And what's going on in Iraq today, it's an illegal occupying army and this is an illegal occupying army and history repeats itself. And not just Iraq, but since then, since the '20s in Ireland, this has happened the world over—empire building and so on.
Kevin: Well, you're not gonna just play villains for us over here [in North America], correct? Because that's what they do. And you know that, it's historical, that's history. We get all the great European actors and then we make them villains. And they're fantastic villains, but you know.
Cillian: Well, it's a funny thing, that, because ...
Kevin: I'm sure you get asked this a lot, too. I apologize for asking.
Cillian: No, no, no. I mean it's understandable, because the two biggest pictures I've been in I've played the bad guy. Maybe it was my lack of experience at the time. But reading those scripts, well Batman I was like, "Fuck it, I'm in, it's a Batman villain." You know, historically, the Batman villains have just been very, very cool.
Kevin: Yeah, it was super cool, you can't say no to that.
Cillian: And then Red Eye, I didn't even think of it as a bad guy. I just thought about it as two actors trying to sustain a movie on a plane. But then they came out, like, I made Breakfast on Pluto in-between the two, but just by a fluke of distribution, they came out one after the other. But to answer your question, I definitely think I've done my quota of bad guys. [Laughs] All the films I've done since then I've kind of been the moral center of the piece. And it just takes one movie to change a perception. Not that I think that perception needs to be changed.
Kevin: No, it doesn't.
Cillian: But it was great to see Gary Oldman in Batman as well playing ...
Kevin: I know, because there's someone who suddenly was a villain in all the American films.
Cillian: Yeah, and an amazing one, an incredible villain. It was nice to see him playing [Commissioner] Gordon and he'll probably be back for the next one.
Kevin: You're not coming back? Scarecrow's not making it back?
Cillian: I don't know right now at this point.
Kevin: Well, it's not a comic book convention. We can move on ... 28 Days Later...? Was that when you discovered Godspeed [You! Black Emperor]?
Cillian: That was [28 Days Later... director] Danny [Boyle]. Danny turned me on to them. But that's a funny story because those guys, I don't know if you know them, but they're like seriously out there.
Kevin: I think the Pope gave a blow job that day when they were able to use music in a film.
Cillian: Because Danny went and met them. Well first of all, he had to screen the movie for them and then he had dinner with them and they agreed. But the music is only in that first opening section and then they wouldn't allow it on the soundtrack.
Kevin: No, of course not.
Cillian: Which is wise. And then the music guy did that building crescendo stuff towards the end. He kind of did a version of their stuff. But yeah man, they're an amazing band.
Kevin: No, they are unique in their own band, in their right. But, that being said, you went back and worked with Danny Boyle again on Sunshine?
Cillian: Yeah. And it's scripted by Alex Garland [The Beach]. It's a pretty far out, trippy sci-fi movie in the best tradition of 2001 and Solaris and Alien. You're never gonna touch those movies, but those are the movies that we were using as our template.
Kevin: And you got some American indie films coming up. I did a little investigating. Talked to people in New York who said you just filmed a film there.
Cillian: I did a movie called Watching the Detectives, which is a little romantic comedy with me and Lucy Liu, directed by Paul Soter. And then I just finished some theater. I was doing a play in London in the West End. And now I'm in L.A., talking about stuff.
Kevin: Fantastic. Well look, I'm gonna go one place and you don't have to go here with me if you don't want to, but I just feel it's important because we live in a very, very instant coffee world. And the saying is no longer, "the grass is greener on the other side," it's more like "the grass is different on the other side." I think so much has been marketed to all ages of difference. And there's such a lost in translation movement going on where everybody's trying to fuckin' have their soundtrack going in their head while they try to experience life by either being irresponsible or trying to look to other things to make them feel alive. I've heard you're a very loyal person, that's what sort of people speak about. You know, I didn't make many phone calls, but I just checked it out and your peers have said, "loyalty." And I heard that you are married to your high school sweetheart, is this true?
Cillian: [Laughs] Well, no, I met her when I was like, 19, 20.
Kevin: Okay, sorry. A teenage sweetheart, I should say.
Cillian: Yeah. We've been together a long time.
Kevin: And you have a little baby as well?
Cillian: I have a little boy, yeah, Malachy.
Kevin: How old is your boy?
Cillian: He's 16 months.
Kevin: That's fantastic. What am I trying to say here? I just feel like things like loyalty are not really much of a thing anymore. Do you find you get a lot from your girl? Like, do you find that you can do what you do and go into this world and fly all over the place and play all these different roles because you're grounded? Because you have someone that grounds you? Because ... acting seems to me if you're not careful, it can just be the most soul-suckin fucking thing in the world to do.
Cillian: Yeah, well I think, both of us are involved in the entertainment industry and it's a bit of a fuckin' nebulous industry. And there's a whole sway to it I have no interest in and I think if you have a normal home life and you have a base and you have someone that is your soulmate, then that gives you a very strong purchase on life I think, you know?
Kevin: Good. Just wanted a little real life in all of this stuff, you know.
Cillian: Yeah, I was gonna ask, [Laughs] I have lots of questions to ask about Broken Social Scene. But I guess you are doing the interview.
Kevin: No, no, you can ask, I don't care.
Cillian: Are you working on a new record or are you touring? What's the status?
Kevin: Everybody, we've stopped. And there's just a slew of albums coming out now. Feist has a new album coming out ... it's very beautiful, much more, it's not so much champagne, it's more like blood, I call it like, a little more blood in the glass now, diamonds ... in it, and it's very beautiful. And Do Make Say Think, who I hope you know, do you know them?
Cillian: Who is that?
Kevin: Do Make Say Think.
Cillian: No, Do Make Say Think. What a cool name. No, I don't know them.
Kevin: You should. That's a couple of guys, Charles [Spearin] and Ohad [Benchetrit]. Charles who's been in Broken Social Scene and I've made records with for ten years now. It's basically my favorite band, even though I know them all. They're instrumental. They're on actually Constellation Records, which was the label that you discovered Godspeed on. And they just put out a new album, which is fucking fantastic. Our guitar player, Andrew [Whiteman], just put out a record under Apostle of Hustle.
Cillian: Apostle of Hustle, that's his name?
Kevin: Yeah. Which you should check out his first record as well.
Cillian: Okay. I'm writing these down.
Kevin: [Laughs] His first record is Folkloric Feel, it was actually, in terms of Arts and Crafts, which is our label, it was our most under-listened, under-heard record and I think it's one of the strongest records on our roster. And I really hope this new album, which is fantastic, gets heard as well. So anything by Apostle of Hustle check out. And then, I'm putting out a record in August. My own record.
Cillian: Are you working on that at the moment?
Kevin: I just stopped. I'm finished. But now I'm in that place where I'm very confused because you know, it was just done so honestly and sweetly.
Cillian: Is this your first solo album?
Kevin: This is my first solo record, yeah.
Cillian: That's great, man.
Kevin: Yeah, I'm really excited about that.
Cillian: Yeah, well that gig that I saw you play at—what was it, the Astoria was it?
Kevin: Yeah.
Cillian: That was amazing, man. I mean, I played in bands and we weren't very good, but like, the idea of getting that many people on stage and sounding not only coherent, but fuckin' beautiful is quite an achievement I think.
Kevin: Well, we've got an incredible soundman.
Cillian: So just keep on making great music, man.
Kevin: Well I hope to. Should we wrap this up?
Mark Redfern (Under the Radar): I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.
Kevin: Oh, here we go. Is this a threesome?
Mark: It's a threesome. Cillian, I was wondering when you first discovered Broken Social Scene.
Cillian: That's a very good question, actually. I think it was probably through the Feist album and then loving that album so much, doing a bit of research and then going backwards from there. I think that's how it came about.
Mark: What other current bands are you into?
Kevin: Yeah, you know, I forgot, I wanted to say, because you're an indie rock guy, "Give us your bands."
Cillian: The bands that I'm liking at the moment are ... God, let me think. I always get put on the spot with this. I really love that solo album that Gruff Rhys put out from the Super Furry Animals. That's an amazing album, I love it. I'm really liking this record by the guy who's from Kings of Convenience. The Whitest Boy Alive, I think.
Kevin: The Whitest Boy Alive, yeah.
Cillian: It's a great album. And Midlake, I'm really liking their new album.
Kevin: Fantastic!
Cillian: There's this Irish band you should check out called Republic of Loose. Have you ever heard of those guys?
Kevin: I haven't. Mark, have you heard of them?
Mark: No, I haven't heard of them.
Cillian: I would do a little Google on those guys and see if you can listen to them.
Mark: Cillian, I was wondering if there were any musicians that you would want to play if they did some sort of biopic or something.
Cillian: Oh God, you know, I've been offered a couple of those and I always am very wary of them because I just think, "Listen to the music," you know? And particularly, they did a Brian Jones [of the Rolling Stones] movie."
Kevin: And it didn't do well.
Cillian: You know, he wasn't a very nice person and there's not that much of a story. And I know they're doing an Ian Curtis [of Joy Division] picture and I talked to them about that. But again, I don't know, there's such a huge amount of pressure and a huge amount of people have invested so much in Ian Curtis and his music and everything else, that it'd have to be a very, very special script for me to get involved. And you know, the good music biopics, you can name them on one hand, really. And there's been so many crap ones. So I'm very kind of anxious about approaching those.
Mark: You said you used to be in bands. Do you still play music? Do you have any aspirations to still do music?
Cillian: I mess around on the guitar for my own enjoyment and I play to my little boy. And I sometimes get together with the guys and play at fuckin' weddings or something. But, not in a serious way at all.
Mark: And Kevin, when did you first discover Cillian Murphy, was that through 28 Days Later...?
Kevin: It was, which I didn't see for a long time, because I wasn't into zombie movies. But then someone finally sat me down with one of their deluxe super home systems and said, "We're gonna do this tonight," and got me very high and I enjoyed it very much.
Cillian: [Laughs] That's the way to watch it, man.
Kevin: Yeah, and I'd never seen you before and you just, immediately, it was one of those like, "Who's that peculiar looking cute boy in this movie?" And then, you know, here we are.
Mark: Kevin, your solo record, what kind of vibe is that compared to Broken Social Scene? Obviously I imagine it's a lot more stripped down?
Kevin: At times it is. But it's also very similar. I might be attacked, but the only reason it's a solo record is because I got to do whatever I wanted and I sang. I find a lot of bands, if there's a band leader who wants to do something, he just sort of takes that band and grinds it down and does his own things with what they created and I, by no means, want to do that with Social Scene. And our next record, I think, is gonna be even more of a collective vibe. I kind of felt last record was getting a little too heavy on my side of the things with my voice and everything. So I just wanted to go and get a bunch of stuff out of my system that I needed to. And it was only made in the most honest [way], I just hung out at my friend's house on and of for a couple years. My friend Ohad Benchetrit and I made it with the Do Make [Say Think] boys, Charles Spearin and Ohad. So it wasn't really anything except doing it for honest reasons. And then it was like, "Okay, I guess we'll put this out." And we didn't know if it was gonna be Social Scene at first. So there's a lot of similarities, but yes, at times it's very coherent and you can hear and there's not eight million things going on.
Mark: Right, but it's not just you and an acoustic guitar or anything like that?
Kevin: No, not at all. The whole band's there. I got to play with a lot of people that I wanted to play with. You know, there's a lot of guests which I have yet to really figure out how I'm gonna go about doing that. I think I'll just probably do it quietly, instead of saying, "Hey," with a big sticker and all that bullshit. That was done really sweetly, too. These people that I love just came and played on it. So, this is basically something where I didn't have to turn to anyone and say, "Is it okay if we, is it okay if I, is it okay?" I just got, at some points, to play everything. And at other points, come and ask people to play little things. I was thinking today, in the two years that I was recording there on and off, I smoked one joint. All I did was hang out with my friend's kid, eat nice meals, and his family took me in. Just drank some wine and made a record, and basically in the daytime. All anti-rock and roll, you know.
Cillian: That's very cool.
Kevin: Home by seven, you know. [Laughs]
Mark: I was rereading the article we did on you around the time of that last record [Broken Social Scene] today and that just seemed like such a crazy time consuming process to make that record, with all the different mixes you had.
Cillian: How long did it take to make?
Kevin: It would've took [less time], but we fooled around. Basically, we had so much freedom that we made ourselves very claustrophobic. You Forgot It In People was made where the band was playing in a basement about a year before we went and recorded anyways, and played a bunch of live shows. This last record was made while we were semi-jamming on tour and then kind of semi-recording while we were in the studio, or people just coming in and playing on top of ideas. So in terms of being this big band, we didn't really go in and write together. We just kind of separately came up with stuff. Or we had ideas and Newfeld was really much like, "Hey, let's try this and try that." David Newfeld, who is our producer, who—both of you, I'll tell you a side note—he just did the Super Furry Animals record. Yeah, so the new one is gonna be produced by Super Furry Animals and David Newfeld, and I've heard a bunch, it's pretty crazy.
Cillian: I'd say so.
Kevin: So yeah, I'll never go back there again. We just kind of lost it. But it's very exhausting, believing half the shit. We were supposed to come out with a big slammer, you know, we were supposed to come out and I don't know, try to do things. But instead, we kind of went against that and tried to make an art record. And I still stand by everything we did. But I think we got lost a bit in only thinking about that for so long.
Cillian: But, listen, I have to say, that's my favorite album in the last two years, definitely.
Kevin: Good. Well, it all works. It all works.
Cillian: In the end.
Mark: Yeah, it was Under the Radar's number one album of the year, that year.
Kevin: Oh really? That's right! You guys, from the beginning, have been, to every friend of mine, pretty fantastic ... And that piece, they did a whole piece, Cillian, on Canadian music.
Cillian: Yeah, I saw that edition.
Kevin: Yeah, that was incredible.
Cillian: And the Canadian government flew, that's what you were saying, Mark, that they flew you up to Canada?
Mark: Yeah, they paid for Wendy and I to fly up to Canada to do the whole thing.
Cillian: What a great government, huh?
Mark: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Kevin: You know, "What a great government." I cannot argue with you in terms of how their arts programs are set up.
Cillian: Yeah, listen, I know nothing else [about the Canadian government] besides that.
Kevin: No, no, no, but I mean I look around and I see we're constantly battling for them. Constantly, constantly battling for them. But even having one program, we seem to be better off than many, many, many places. And we have a few. I know personally in my last record, I got thirty thousand dollars from a government-owned, government-run program called Factor. You gotta pay it back, but it works in your advantage. You just have to pay it back through Canadian sales. And, I mean soon that's—because record sales are dying—soon it's gonna be like, "Shit, can't really come up with the cash, guys." [Laughs] But no, we're fortunate. We are. I kept that [Under the Radar issue]. I told my parents, this issue, this will be something that you want to show your grandkids or something, because there's so much crap you do, but when you come across something that was genuine and I thought that was really, really a genuine, sweet—you captured a time, basically.
Mark: Cool, well thank you. That was our intention, definitely ... Well, I don't have any other questions.
Kevin: All right guys, great threesome. I had fun.
Cillian: Yeah, me too.
***
These bonus quotes jump in as Drew and Murphy are discussing an interesting source of funding for Irish cinema.
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Kevin Drew: That's probably one of the beautiful things about the Irish mob is that they will put [money] towards making a great beautiful, lovely art film like Breakfast on Pluto.
Cillian Murphy: [Laughs] The Irish mob. There are actually beginning to be private investors in Ireland who are seeing that you can put some money into movies like this. It gives you a bit of cachet and you might be lucky and get something back.
Kevin: Exactly, the parties are good.
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Kevin: Was [The Wind That Shakes the Barley] an all Irish film set kind of thing?
Cillian: Yeah, what [Ken Loach] does, if you look at any of his films, he just casts from the area he's shooting in, so all the actors have it in their DNA and they're not putting on an accent. I mean this is the second film only I've ever done in my own accent. And everyone in the movie is from Cork.
Kevin: Was that shot in Cork?
Cillian: Yeah. All around the locale.
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Kevin: I spoke to someone and they thought [The Wind That Shakes the Barley] was very violent. I did not find it violent at all, in terms of what the fuck is out there. And I think that's a very obvious thing to say. But I actually found it, there was something very calm about it, the way that it was shot, right down to just the soundtrack itself. I thought it delivered everything very beautifully. So, I think you and the cast, and especially the director, you all did a very wonderful job and I hope people see it. And I don't know, I saw it, I had the flu. It just makes it more sensitive and real when you completely can't get off the couch.
Cillian: Yeah, well I think Americans, and I know you're not American, but…
Kevin: That's okay, I am. [Laughs]
Cillian: [Laughs] But that again when you mention the IRA or anything like that, they just think of the Provisional IRA and what happened in the North of Ireland. But I think this film will hopefully—it's not meant to be an education, because you can't take your history lessons from movies, but—it should at least open people's eyes a little bit more to what actually happened and why the country was in the state it was in for many, many years.
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Cillian: And can you just talk a little bit about you guys doing soundtracks and stuff? Because I know you did the Half Nelson sound track, is that right?
Kevin: Yeah, they came to us. We got a call that some film was using 15 of our already recorded songs and it was one of those things where you were like, "No way!" And then we saw the film and there was absolutely no way we could not do it, we just loved the movie so much. And the way they used the music.
Cillian: And it did so well, huh?
Kevin: Yeah.
Cillian: I haven't seen it yet. I haven't got a chance to see it.
Kevin: Yeah, you should, it's very good. And the guy is really good.
Cillian: Ryan Gosling is a great actor.
Kevin: And he just got that [Oscar] nomination. And it was really well done. They were such sweet people, Ryan [Fleck] and Anna [Boden] who produced it, directed it and wrote it. It's a film made by humans about humans and that's what we're kind of into doing soundtracks to. That's why we ended up doing Snow Cake and how we met [producer] Gina [Carter]. It's just that there are so many of them, the name is becoming a bit of an institution or a brand. I mean there's a soundtrack that was just done that I had nothing to do with and it went under Broken Social Scene because Brendan did it. With Charles in it. But people come up to me and they're like, "Hey, I heard you're doing that [soundtrack]."
Cillian: Is it a fluid number of members in the group or how many does it officially stand at then?
Kevin: Well it's always been a fluid number of members….I don't know what the fuck is going on. All I know is that yeah, we're friends, Cillian. It was all friendship and that's how it started and then now we're just kind of regrouping.
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Mark Redfern (Under the Radar): Are there any fictional characters that you're dying to play? Either from literary sources or from comic books or old TV shows or anything like that? Is there anything that sticks out?
Cillian: I wish I had an original thought there. They all seem to be already bought or made or Leonardo DiCaprio's doing them. These big studios just have people in their literary department and in publishing houses and all the comic books are all bought up. It's very hard to find an original idea that hasn't been bought. But I keep looking.
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-Mark: Cillian, you'd done movies before [28 Days Later...], but that was really the one that kind of launched you.
Cillian: That was the first one that anyone saw, really. And it was the first one with an established director. So that film means a lot to me because, well, I'm very proud of it and also it opened a lot of doors and people began to be able to pronounce my fuckin' name, you know.
Mark: Right. Is there an actor that you kind of look up to, in terms of how their career path goes?
Cillian: There are a lot of them. But I stopped naming them, because it gets a bit embarrassing. And then you end up meeting them and you feel like a bit of an idiot. And there's so many, it's the obvious ones I think, both living and dead. But it's funny, I get way more excited or nervous or flustered when I meet musicians, weirdly.
Mark: You seem to have this interesting career where you're doing these Hollywood movies and then the independent movies. Are you going to try and keep doing that? Or do you see a time when you're going to get swallowed up by Hollywood?
Cillian: I hope not. I mean for me it's just about the stories that are worth telling and it doesn't matter if they're within the Hollywood system or outside of it, because there's good and bad movies made in both systems.
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Cillian: Now what's [your solo album] going to be called?
Kevin: I'm not sure. And I've already gone through this, Cillian, where you go, "I think it's gonna be called this." And then they start printing that. And then you change it.
Mark: Yeah, I remember we did an interview with you where you named the third Social Scene album as Windsurfing Nation.
Kevin: And it should have remained that.
Mark: We printed that and everybody was referring to it as that for a year, because it was a year before it came out. And then, of course, you changed it to a self-titled album.
Cillian: There's a song [on the album] called "Windsurfing Nation."
Kevin: I'll never be there again. And I don't know about you, Cillian, but it was one of those points where just everything got too serious with this record. It was just kind of ridiculous and we changed our minds about things so many fucking times.
Cillian: Well it's a fucking great record, man.
Kevin: Yeah, so whatever. In the end, I love it. But yes, Mark, we should have kept that title. I told you what the title was then, and still think it works now. And people still refer to it as Windsurfing Nation.
