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Post by cougarlady on Dec 14, 2011 9:32:27 GMT -5
Found this excerpt of an interview with "Red Eye" director Wes Craven. We'll never know just how close we came to having an IRISH Jackson Rippner! The accents may not be as effortless for Cillian as we thought, but to his enormous credit, he persisits and makes it SEEM effortless. Pisces' observation about his slower speech was a concern of Craven's as well. Here is the interview excerpt:
How was it working with the very Irish Murphy? Was he reticent at all about being such a bastard?
Craven: "The true story is I didn't necessarily want Cillian Murphy. I was aware of him, I'd seen 28 Days Later, and I really liked him. But he didn't enter my radar at all. He felt so ethnically Irish and European. Meanwhile, I hear that Cillian is interested in the part. He wants to talk to me and prove he's the one for the role. So I have a conversation with guy, who is speaking to me in the thickest Irish brogue you can imagine. I got off the phone and said, 'Listen, he's really passionate about this, but I don't think so.' Then two days later, I hear 'Cillian Murphy is on an airplane to come meet you. At LAX. He wants to have lunch with you.' F**k! So my producer and I went to LAX, there's a restaurant there. And Cillian comes bounding into the room, from just getting off an airplane. First thing I see are these gigantic blue eyes, a shade I've never seen before. He's very charming, so I thought, 'OK, she could fall for this guy,' but then as we talked more, I could see glimpses of this character in him and thought, 'Holy s**t!' I could believe it."
How about Murphy tackling the American accent?
Craven: "Well, I said to him, 'Do you think you can do this in five weeks?' And he's like, 'Absolutely, I swear to God!' But it was tough going at first. The accent thing hindered him; he was slow and very mannered, speaking phonetically. So I told him to forget about the American accent because, after I thought about it, there really wasn't a reason why the character couldn't be Irish. That was on a Friday. He came in the next Monday and just nailed the accent. He told me later that he was so preoccupied with doing [the accent] that when he suddenly didn't have to do it, it just came to him. Took the pressure off."
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Post by The Phantom Lady on Dec 14, 2011 9:42:05 GMT -5
That was a really interesting read, thanks Cougarlady!
This fits well with him saying he likes parts that is a stretch, I imagine it must have been hard work getting the accent down! Thank goodness Wes Craven did go with Cilly... imagine if he had never been Jackson??
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Post by Zombiekitten on Dec 14, 2011 13:16:14 GMT -5
Thanks for that, Cougarlady ! That was interesting!! I love how eager Cillian was to get that role. And how he really racked himself for it. To imagine we maybe never had that Jackson Rippner !!! Arghh... That would be horrible. We maybe would have a Jackson played by Sean Penn... Nothing against Sean Penn, of course! But Jackson is perfect has he is, brought to life by Cilly !
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licia
Fervently Infected
Posts: 58
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Post by licia on Dec 22, 2011 13:09:49 GMT -5
as a huge Wes' fan I have to say this interview is love hahaha. Poor Cillian though. How could anyone not have him as first choice? LOL
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Post by 28days on Jan 5, 2012 6:10:02 GMT -5
as a huge Wes' fan I have to say this interview is love hahaha. Poor Cillian though. How could anyone not have him as first choice? LOL Guess it comes with the territory of being non-American if the director is looking for an American character. There are so many Americans to choose from after all and if you're not entirely familiar with him (which at the time Craven likely wasn't) you're going to struggle to hear past that Cork accent you've heard over the phone ;D Think he's done enough American roles that people have seen for people to trust him, now.
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Post by cougarlady on Jan 6, 2012 4:58:57 GMT -5
I watched a trailer for the unreleased Red Light Runners, and was pleasantly surprised to hear him using a c*ckney accent! Wow, I would never have guessed that he struggled with accents at all, they just seem so believable and so effortless. Contrast his efforts with someone like Sienna Miller, who was supposed to be using an Irish accent in EOL. Now granted, I'm no expert, but she sounded like her usual British self to me. Other comments about regional dialects in America prompted me to think about this -- in my experience, the most pronounced accents are to be found in the Eastern U.S. (Eastern seaboard and the deep South). As you progress westward, those accents are less pronounced (Midwestern), and by the time you reach the Western U.S., they are largely gone. I'm from the Western U.S. and I can think of no regional accents there, it's very generic. But I can always tell if someone is from Michigan or Boston or Alabama or New York, just by their accent. Perhaps it's just a result of our country's history of westward expansion, and the fact that immigrants from all over the globe were living in communities together. Their accents softened and eventually disappeared over time, especially as they migrated west and away from immigrant enclaves. Even my husband's distinctly southern accent has softened after years of living in the West, to the point that I hardly hear it now. He doesn't even say "y'all" any more, lol! O.K., now THAT is an accent I'd like to hear Cillian attempt -- a southern drawl Perhaps in that western that is in his future.
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Post by Cait on Jan 6, 2012 13:46:03 GMT -5
I think Cillian would sound sexy using a southern drawl! I'm sure he could pull anything off. I'm one of those who's hoping he stars in a western sometime in the future.
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Post by merlange11 on Jan 6, 2012 15:16:36 GMT -5
www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1ekndZmrEMI think this is my favorite Cillian accent. Who knows, maybe if the project had been completed, I wouldn't have liked it so much but I love it
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Post by Pisces on Jan 7, 2012 15:23:30 GMT -5
O.K., now THAT is an accent I'd like to hear Cillian attempt -- a southern drawl Perhaps in that western that is in his future. Now THAT would be a challenge!! Living in the south, I can tell you that very rarely does an actor from another area pull the accent off correctly. Actresses try to talk like Scarlett O'Hara, and the male actors seem to be channelling Fogorn Leghorn. LOL. Again, though, like the different variations of the Irish accent, it's one of those things that most people would never know unless you've lived there. I'd LOVE to see if Cillian could do a southern dialect. He has such an amazing ear for stuff like that. But no doubt, it would be difficult. A lot of it isn't the way certain words are pronounced, but the way an entire sentence is spoken. People here tend to bring up the ends of their sentences as if they are asking a question, even when they are not. LOL. It's stuff like that that is always done wrong in the movies.
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Post by cougarlady on Jan 10, 2012 18:33:52 GMT -5
So true about the Southern accents! I keep thinking of Mrs. Hurtle in TWWLN -- that did not sound like any southern accent that I'VE ever heard, lol. Then again, the actors who ARE from the south seem to tone their accents down when performing, or they eliminate them completely. I guess Wes Craven's observation is correct -- no actor wants to be known for their own accent.
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Post by Pisces on Jan 10, 2012 18:44:42 GMT -5
So true about the Southern accents! I keep thinking of Mrs. Hurtle in TWWLN -- that did not sound like any southern accent that I'VE ever heard, lol LMAO! Yeah, that was one of the worst attempts I've seen. Not to put the actress down or anything, but when someone is in over their head with an accent, it might be a good idea to just not do it. Gena Rowlands' accent in Skeleton Key was pretty authentic. She sounded almost exactly like the mother of a guy I used to date.
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Post by leyla11 on Mar 3, 2012 16:32:58 GMT -5
Of course I adore his native Irish accent...I've always had a thing for charming Irish boys. Most striking faces in the world and talent to boot. I mean, it's such a small island and in less than 100 kilometers you have Cillian and Michael Fassbender. And actually quite a lot of other people is it Christmas already? Maybe I should move....but my husband would murder me! He had a great American accent in Red Eye, but all about him screamed "Emerald Island forever" to me. Probably the fact that I first saw him in How Harry Became a Tree and I had already ventured into Disco Pigs without subtitles (I'm Italian) had already scarred me for life
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Post by Tara la Reine on Mar 7, 2012 13:21:58 GMT -5
I wonder if the fact that Cillian is musical helps him with accents. The inflection and rhythm of speech and whatnot.
Anyhoo, I think Cillian's real accent is loveliest, but those he puts on are always fun to hear. I was really impressed by how subtly Nebraskan he sounded in 'Peac*ck'. I also recently watched the little YouTube clip from 'Red Light Runners' and was immediately suffused with the desire to have 90 minutes of Cillian looking like Jim and speaking with that c*ckney accent.
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Post by bunnie24 on Mar 8, 2012 18:39:18 GMT -5
Yeah, he's very good--it's like he hears it and just absorbs it...my mom is still having a hard time with him NOT being American--cause she thought he was spot on in Red Eye ((even IF she didn't like the movie))
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Post by emma286 on Jun 9, 2012 4:35:27 GMT -5
Great thread idea Cougar lady, and many thanks from me for posting that interview too. Also found very interesting to read!
With accents, for me personally, its a draw between his real life irish accent and his on screen American one. I find it very hard to choose between the two! Love listening to both. :-)
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