Cillian Murphy on Steve, Oppenheimer Success and Not Playing Voldemort

Cillian Murphy won the best actor Oscar last year for his nuanced portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s all-conquering biopic. Incredibly, in Netflix drama “Steve” — which starts streaming on Oct. 3 — the Irish actor manages to look more emotionally exhausted than a nuclear physician with the weight of global annihilation on his shoulders. It’s something he chalks up to a “very good hair and makeup team.”

Directed by Tim Mielants, “Steve” — which was announced in the midst of “Oppenheimer’s” domineering awards run and was co-produced by Murphy through his recently-launched Big Things Film — is loosely based on Max Porter’s acclaimed novella “Shy,” set in the mid-’90s at a struggling and underfunded reform school for boys with societal and behavioral difficulties. But whereas the original story was told through the perspective of one of the pupils, for “Steve,” Porter — in his first screenplay — twisted it around to shift the focus on the school’s deeply empathetic but endlessly embattled (and very exhausted) head teacher, played by Murphy.

For the actor, whose parents were both teachers, the film serves as a love letter to the profession. “They’re the custodians of the next generation, and nobody really talks about it,” he says.

Joining Murphy in the school canteen for “Steve” are Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo and Simbi Ajikawo, plus Emily Watson, who reunites with Murphy after last year’s “Small Things Like These,” which was also directed by Mielants.

Speaking to Variety, Murphy discusses honoring Ken Loach — his director on 2006 Irish war drama “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” — on “Steve” by stealing a couple of the iconic filmmaker’s techniques, why he didn’t make the leap from his “Oppenheimer” success to other major studio projects and confirms that no, despite online rumors, he’s not destined to play He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in HBO’s “Harry Potter” reboot.

I understand you’re friends with with Max Porter. When you first read “Shy,” did you immediately have your filmmaker hat on and start thinking how it could be adapted for screen?

I was very lucky, I read a proof copy of the book before it came out. Myself and Max go back. This is our third project together. So he sent it to me, and I just read it, and it was magical and extraordinary. There are some books you read that you think, that’s a perfect little thing, and it’s unadaptable because it’s all set in this character’s head and it’s a stream of conscious, a first-person perspective. Why would you make a film of it? And then two years later, we had made “Small Things Like These,” and we loved the experience. And myself and Max were trying to dream up what the next project would be together. And he said, “How about we tackle ‘Shy’?” And I thought, “Well, I don’t know how you’re going to do that, because it’s all in Shy’s head.” And he said, “How about we split the narrative between the head teacher, who was a tiny character in the novel, and tell that overlapping story between Shy and Steve.” And I thought that was a brilliant idea. So we commission it and off he went and he wrote it really quickly. We sent it to Netflix and they said yes to funding it really quickly.

All the performances in it are absolutely outstanding. Was it the case that some of the kids were actually untrained actors performing for the first time?

A lot of them had some experience, but yeah, a few of them didn’t have any. But we saw 3,500 kids. [Casting director] Robert Sterne did an amazing job. We saw many, many, many kids and then we began to narrow it down to this kind of motley crew. And then our director Tim Mielants was in the room, workshopping with these actors. We discovered our Shy in Jay [Lycurgo], who had done work to date. He was just an instant casting consensus from all of us. So we went to workshop the boys in the location for like two and a half weeks. And we really made them feel like part of the fabric of this school and it came to a point where the kids were becoming the characters, and the characters were becoming the kids. It was a lovely process.

It was great to see Emily Watson back again after her small but award-winning performance in “Small Things Like These.” She’s got more lines in “Steve” and is — thankfully — less terrifying. Has Emily become your secret weapon?

Listen, if I could work with Emily forever, I would. I’ve adored her work since I was a very young actor, probably since before I was an actor. I think I saw “Breaking the Waves” before I had ever done any acting. She’s one of my favorites.

And Roger Allam does a wonderful Tory minister, as only he can. I know this is set in 1996, but there’s a line about him having divided a country and perhaps a rumor about something sexual he may have done to an animal. I don’t think this is in the book. Was this perhaps a little comic reference to a former British Prime Minister?

I’ll leave that to your readers. But it’s interesting, because Roger Allam actually played a terrible establishment figure in “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” as well. Again, he’s one of my favorite actors. So it was lovely to able to reach out to him after 20 years and say, “This is one day’s work, but we need someone who could do this properly.” And he came and just absolutely smashed it.

Speaking of “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” there’s definitely a Loachian feel to this film. I can imagine it being something that Ken Loach would have loved to have made himself. You obviously worked with Ken a long time ago. Where you trying channel him when you made this?

Absolutely. There’s a few things I should share with you. The location was effectively one location, so I thought, why not shoot everything in sequence like Ken does? Because it’s very, very rare you get to do it. And when I did it on “Barley” like he does it for every film, it was life-changing because you just went on this journey with this character in order, and it was purely instinctual and you acquired the emotional information as you went along. And every scene was a rehearsal for the next scene. So I stole that technique from him.

And for the scene where the board come and tell them that they’ve sold the school, I had never met those actors before. The first time we encountered them was on camera. And that’s a technique that Ken used all the time, where they keep you separate from the antagonists in the film, so that when you actually came into the scene it’s fully charged with as much realism as you can muster, rather than, like, chatting about the weather by a catering truck. Ken’s a hero of mine. So I thought, why not try to use the techniques of his, given that we can.

You are superb as Steve, but the one thing I would say is that somehow you managed to look more haggard, more physically and emotionally exhausted, than I’ve ever seen you on screen before. Which is impressive given you quite recently had the weight of global nuclear annihilation on your shoulders. Was there an art to achieving this?

Hahaha. Well, I have a very good hair and makeup team. And also I wanted it to be believable, like he’s in one costume the whole time. So we spent weeks trying to get that one very ordinary costume correct because it’s all about signaling, you know. It can’t be too flashy, it can’t be too understated, it can’t be too bland, but it can’t yet be too personal. It can’t be too creased, but it can’t be too messy. You know, he can’t wear an earring because that’s too showy, but he can’t be clean shaven because he doesn’t have the time. It’s a process of elimination. And then he should start off in a state of exhaustion, and then become increasingly, increasingly, increasingly more exhausted. And also, he’s really struggling with addiction and so we wanted to in no way possible glamorize the real fucking horror of that disease. But what I have known from speaking to ex-addicts and from knowing them myself is that you can exist in a very high level and function at a very high level while being in a state of addiction. So there was a huge amount of thought and effort that went into it hopefully being invisible.

This film was announced in February last year, in the middle of the campaigning for “Oppenheimer.” I love the fact you followed that success and the Oscar win for such a blockbuster film with smaller indie projects. It almost feels like “Small Things Like This” and now “Steve” was a deliberate reaction to Hollywood. Was it?

No, not in any way. With “Small Things Like These,” the script was written and ready to go before I did “Oppenheimer,” and then “Steve” was ready and waiting to go until I’d finished. It was written and financed and ready to go. I just had to finish the awards run with “Oppenheimer.” I suppose it’s a 30-year evolution of taste and experience and trying to refine what the stories you actually want to tell are. The unprecedented success of “Oppenheimer” was this magical, extraordinary thing that happened, and I’m so grateful for it and so proud of it. But the types of films that I want to make and the types of stories that I want to tell haven’t been changed by that.

In the wake of the success of “Oppenheimer,” did you find yourself suddenly in hot demand to lead more big, studio projects?

No, because I had these other two films straight away. I just wasn’t available, so it didn’t happen. Maybe some day it will. Or maybe it’s too late.

Another bigger studio film that you are in is “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” but your involvement has been kept quite secretive. Can you offer any clue as to what guise we might see you?

I cannot. But I will say that I think Nia DaCosta has made an extraordinary film, and it’s an amazing accompaniment to Danny’s movie. I’m only in it a tiny bit, but I’m really proud of it.

When the trailer for “28 Years Later” came out, a lot of people thought that the skeletal infected seen emerging from a field was what remained of your character from the original. I hope you’re going to be a little more than a semi-naked infected?

That’s very kind of you. I think I am more. But it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

Finally, there has been some wild online speculation that you’re actually going to be playing Voldemort in HBO’s “Harry Potter” reboot, which I hear is sadly not the case.

No, no, no. It would be very hard to follow Ralph Fiennes.

This is, of course, what anyone who was playing Voldemort would have been told to say.

Ha! No, I don’t play those games.