Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan’s collaboration is one for the history books. Ever since they first met on the set of Batman Begins, they have collaborated on 6 movies with the Oscar-nominated flick Oppenheimer being the latest. Now being friends for over two decades, the actor feels pretty confident working with one of the most prolific directors in the entire film industry.
While he has since grown to love Nolan’s film sets and feels pretty comfortable, there was a time when he felt terribly nervous being on a Nolan set. In an old unearthed interview of the BAFTA-winning actor, he revealed which of Nolan’s brilliant movies made him the most nervous.
Cillian Murphy Felt the Jitters While Working on a Christopher Nolan Movie
Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan have been working with each other for the past 20 years. And every time they have worked, the results have always turned out to be extraordinary, with their latest Oppenheimer being the crown jewel in their history of shared filmography.
Their relationship began when Nolan was busy piecing together his first Dark Knight movie, Batman Begins. It was Murphy’s enchanting eyes that made Nolan cast him as the Scarecrow, one of the deadliest villains of Gotham. And it was on the sets of Batman Begins that Murphy felt extremely nervous.
In an old interview from 2010 with Live Journal, the actor stated,
“I remember being blown away when I walked onto the Batman set. I mean I was very, very nervous, and it was like a big responsibility for me. But it felt like just walking onto the set of an independent film. The atmosphere that he creates on the floor is very, very intimate. It’s just him and Wally Pfister, the cameraman, and he’s right beside the camera watching the action take place between the actors.”
However, as he later revealed in the interview, and in a more recent interview with Deadline, it was the intimacy and the privateness of the set that helped him be comfortable on Nolan’s sets. The chance to have the opportunity to try to create something that isn’t in the script in private was what helped him overcome the fear and lose the jitters.
Cillian Murphy has Grown to Love Christopher Nolan’s Sets Due to their Privateness
Cillian Murphy once revealed in an interview with the Associated Press how he loves being on the sets of Nolan’s movies because of the challenges associated with them. Nolan’s sets are infamous for having the most disciplined and intense atmosphere with some of the most bizarre rules (see Collider).
Yet the first-time Oscar-nominated actor revealed he has grown to love Nolan’s film sets due to their private nature. In an interview with Deadline, the actor remarked how he feels very cared for while working with Nolan.
“And also his sets, even though they’re huge blockbuster movies, it feels very private when you’re making them cause there’s only one camera, there’s the boom op and there’s Chris right next to the camera. There’s no video village, there’s none of that, so it does feel like this kind of laboratory that you’re making work in and you can make a fool of yourself and try something that mightn’t work.”
And that is why he reckons that the director has managed to create such blockbuster films one after the other.
Oppenheimer can be rented on Amazon Prime.
