Volta™ – Irish Independent Film Online

Disco Pigs toured to packed houses all over the world, with Murphy earning rave reviews for his performance. When Kirsten Sheridan adapted the play for her 2001 film of the same title, Murphy reprised the role of Darren to give an extraordinary performance as a disaffected, potentially violent teenager who forms a life-long connection with a girl named Sinead.

Murphy had made his film debut shortly after joining Corcadorca in 1997, playing the lead in Eden director Declan Reck’s short film Quando. He followed this with a run of roles in short films and parts in features, playing Pat the Barman in Stephen Bradley’s 1998 comedy Sweety Barrett and taking a role opposite Daniel Craig in William Boyd’s 1999 WWI drama The Trench, among others. In 2001, Murphy’s extraordinary naturalism started to pay dividends, with his role opposite Elaine Cassidy in Sheridan’s Disco Pigs and John Carney’s On The Edge, as a depressed young man who forms a relationship with a troubled woman in a psychiatric treatment centre. Shortly after filming, Murphy reunited with Carney for the unreleased short comedy Zonad, which the director and his brother Kieran would return to in 2010 for the feature length comedy starring Simon Delaney.

In 2002, Murphy was cast by Danny Boyle to play the lead in his zombie apocalypse thriller 28 Days Later, which would become a surprise success and launch the actor on the international stage. Reunited with his Sweety Barrett co-star Brendan Gleeson, Murphy played Jim, one of the few survivors of a mysterious plague that turned almost everyone in Britain into a flesh-craving monster. Shortly afterwards, Murphy returned to Ireland to take a role in the ensemble cast for John Crowley’s contemporary comedy Intermission, which earned rave reviews and was a box-office hit. The following year, Murphy took supporting roles in Peter Webber’s adaptation of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl With a Pearl Earring and Anthony Minghella’s American Civil War drama Cold Mountain before taking the role that would deliver him to the next level of international recognition, playing the villain in Christopher Nolan’s reboot of the Batman superhero franchise.

As The Scarecrow in 2005s Batman Begins, Murphy’s razorblade cheekbones and piercing blue eyes were put to use as an outright bad guy for the first time, even if his face was hidden behind a tattered cloth mask for much of his performance. The most popular film at the international box-office in 2005, Murphy followed up with another scoundrel, playing the sinister (and curiously named) Jackson Rippner in Wes Craven’s kidnap thriller Red Eye. Having married his wife, artist Yvonne McGuinness in 2004, Murphy made a return to Ireland to play one of the most challenging roles of his career, the transvestite star of Neil Jordan’s 70s-era picaresque drama Breakfast on Pluto. Adapted from the novel by Patrick McCabe, Murphy’s indelible performance as Patrick ‘Kitten’ Brady earned him critical plaudits, a Golden Globe nomination and the IFTA for Best Actor. For his next role, Murphy returned to Cork with British director Ken Loach’s Irish Civil War drama The Wind That Shakes The Barley, in which he played Damien, a young man driven by a love for his country who abandons his career as a doctor to take up arms against the Black & Tans. Among a host of international awards, the film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was – until the release of The Guard - the most successful independent Irish film at the Irish box office.

If there is a thread running through Murphy’s career to date, it is his ongoing collaborations with directors who return to work with the actor again and again. In 2008, he teamed up with Danny Boyle for the second time with the science-fiction thriller Sunshine, playing a scientist on a mission to reignite the Sun with a nuclear missile. Two years later, in 2010, Murphy reunited with Christopher Nolan for his mind-bending thriller Inception, playing the heir to a massive corporate fortune kidnapped by Leonardo DiCaprio’s dream-weaving Dom Cobb to implant an idea in his head. Nominated for more than 100 international awards, including eight Oscars (winning four) the film was a massive international box office success. Despite his ever-growing international reputation, Murphy assiduously shuns the celebrity lifestyle, will not publicly discuss his private life and did not appear on a television chat-show until 2010.

2012 looks like being another busy year for the actor, who has recently completed filming on Rodrigo Cortes’ paranormal drama Red Lights, playing the assistant to Sigourney Weaver as she investigates the claims of Robert DeNiro’s blind psychic. He is currently shooting Rufus Norris’ Broken in London, adapted by Intermission writer Mark O’Rowe from the novel by Daniel Clay about a young British woman whose life changes when she is witness to a violent event.