Port Magazine

[leyla11]

I know other actors who hate interviews as much as him. Alan Rickman for example. Most of my favorite actors tend to hate interviews with a vengeance. I think it's because they're very intelligent people and - to put it quite bluntly - they cannot suffer fools. I have a very low esteem of the press myself, I've readd so many inane comments, so many unbeliavable articles/intervoews by journalists who were impossibly ignorant and who never cared to check their facts...so many malevolent articles....based on nothing but the desire to hurt people. I speak for the Italian press....it is little more than scum.
On the other hand, when the journalist is competent, intelligent and respectful, you get an interesting interview, not the usual bunch of identical questions. The Port one was rather good. Not excellent, but at least not stupid.
I realised Cillian got asked the same questions over and over again, so he defended himself by replying with exactly the same words, probably by heart. It's his very dry sense of humour, LOL. I can understand he is very bored....they could arrange a press conference to save time....since they're all writing the same...
Journalists can drive actors crazy, even Michael Fassbender, who has the patience of a dozen saints, can snap once in a while after the umpteenth identical stupid question. It's part of their job, but journalists are supposed to do their job too, I think....

[Pisces]

There's a reason Cillian is asked the same questions repeatedly. He won't answer questions of a personal nature, no matter how benign (understandable), and now he's also saying that he doesn't enjoy discussing his work, either. That leaves exactly... what? Pretty much what was discussed in this interview, which was the interview itself and how much Cillian didn't like having to do it, and some awkward talk about what they were eating. Frankly, I think he would be better off by simply refusing to do interviews at all. And I don't understand his need to vent about hating the interview process every time he speaks to a journalist; we all have parts of our jobs that we don't like - or even hate - but the people to vent to about it are family and/or friends behind the scenes, not the person involved in the process. It's petulant, and smacks of unprofessionalism to complain about it every time it occurs.

The De Niro comment rubbed me the wrong way because he came off as someone who had very little appreciation for being able to work with other A-list actors. There surely are thousands of struggling actors out there who could only dream of working with someone like Bobby, or Sigourney, and would happily discuss it from dawn til dark if it ever happened. That doesn't mean questions can't be repetitive; but there's a point when honestly isn't refreshing, it's merely bitter and off-putting.

Like this post, maybe.

I hope I haven't offended any friends here, but I have defended Cillian many times in the past for this sort of thing and I simply can't do so any more. I love his work, always have, and respect his art to the nth degree. Just can't deal with his interviews.

[wikkleshamrocks]

Mega valid and bloody good points there Leyla & Pisces!!! I agree with everything you both say but I definitely lean towards Pisces thoughts because even though the journalists are repetitive and annoying to Cillian, so are Cillian's answers. Maybe he could elaborate a bit on them to make interviews more interesting. There's a tonne of stuff he could talk about if he does indeed have half a brain. It would help colour the interviews better. It's not entirely the journalists job to construct the interview. Maybe even less than 50% of the work. Cillian understands the media comes with the job description at this level so he should work at it at least half as well as he does as his roles. I must admit, I get bored with the interviews because they are dreadfully similar and this is not just the journalists' faults. The only bits I enjoy are the journalists' descriptions of everything but the bloody interview questions. I mean as a loyal fan to Cillian, getting excited at the fresh account of what he does with a glass of wine or what restaurant he's attending is all I seem to do when these interviews become repetitive schlopp & drone.

[leyla11]

Probably I have a very very low esteem of the press, but I don't think the vast majority of them is doing their job properly. And I prefer someone who's sincere in his hate of doing interviews rather than someone who fakes good spirits and likeability.
I support Cillian's refusal to talk about his private life. It's a good move, keep it private or you will be gossip fodder. He doesn't like to talk about his work if this work has nothing to do with the interview. For example, if the interview is done to promote Red Lights, it's only fair he doesn't want to spend 50% of the time talking about Batman.....let's keep it to the subject and - for heaven's sake, journalists should do some basic research and come up with something intesting. The De Niro reply was not intended an unrespectful, just as "I got asked this ten dozen times". If I was an actress I would probably be the same, if not worse. People are different one from the other....the are persons who can chat about small details and make them seem big stories, and people who are naturally shy in this kind of situation.
Yet once in a while a very bright, intelligent journalist comes up and he/she asks the right questions and....pooffff.... The "ogre" opens up like an exotic flower and the interview becomes interesting and moving.

[The Phantom Lady]

I must say the discussed answer here also struck me... I can't help but read it as being a bit 'snobbish', I don't know if Cillian meant it that way, but that was how I read it... But I could be wrong, perhaps Cillian just had a bad experience working with De Niro... who knows?

I do appreciate his honesty, but he should be careful too, you know?

[thehyacinthgirl]

I'd say a lot of the reason I 'moved on' from Cillian is his overall attitude and lack of ambition. It's sad to see. Even sadder to read. I hate parts of jobs too. Imagine being served in a restaurant by a waiter who put your food down and said "I can't stand serving food to people but at least I believe in the food" - or an artist who told those who turned up to his exhibitions that he detests the events. Would you want to buy food? Would you want to take home a painting?

He does himself no favours. I'd love to say I still love his work but where's the ambition? The last good film I saw of his was 2010. And now he wants to 'do telly'. I'm sure his US fanbase will be delighted it's yet another thing of his they'll never get to see.

My advice to him would be man up, stop moaning or stop doing interviews at all. This is coming from a person who has followed him since 2002. The embarrassing John Lennon stuff on the video was bad enough.

[wikkleshamrocks]

Yes Hyacinthgirl i agree about the lack of ambition to a part moreover he chooses what pleases him and satisfies his challenges and intrigue, he does it well but stuff the hungry fan base across the pond I hear him say.

Yes Leyla, rapport with the reporter and interviewee are key! But its the clever questions you are talking about what he needs to get him going but still, when he's jet lagged... Jet lag is bloody awful especially when you do a couple of Atlantic hops like that within days of each other, I've done it for work and it's zombiefying! He was incredibly tired after ping ponging around the globe as you see but he does need to stop whining. Bless him.

Also we are so used to hearing his stories of old, so he's not the only one getting bored here... ;D ...they are new to others not so dedicated to him or are just beginning to be. Still he can be a grump.

[Pisces]

Sept 25, 2012 1:38:56 GMT -5 @thehyacinthgirl said:

Imagine being served in a restaurant by a waiter who put your food down and said "I can't stand serving food to people but at least I believe in the food"

"The main course comes with a side of guilt. Enjoy."

[dulcemirita]

I can’t be more agree with all with you have said…Although it’s part of his job to attend endless interviews in wich you get questioned the same questions over and over again. On those, he must continue acting and the show must go on, instead of showing boredom to the interviewer, try to show a certain enthusiasm. In most of times, he does act like that and although his answers probably are given on a one-dimensional tone (which is is natural tone of voice, rather than a passionate one) he gets pretty convincing on making believe not only to the interviewer, but also to the potential audience that he’s interested in which he’s been asked.

Lately, and given to the myriad of interviews concerning Red Lights, I’ve seen a noticeable difference on the passion that Rodrigo Cortes put on his answers, also asked one and trillion times the same ones, opposite to Cillian, who seemed to show a little bit more of dullness, But a director must be in love along 2 years with his creature…on the contrary that an actor, who rapidly dissociates from the film the moment he’s embarked on new projects. I can’t blame him and his attitude and lack of charisma (yes, he has 0 charisma, maybe he has another qualitiesm such as a certain charm, maybe)
won’t impede to continue looking for his interviews, mostly those published on magazines, which offer a personal point of view from the interviewer, although as Mish says, more than interested on the answers I’d rather put special attention to some other details.

He’s not the only one that finds tedious this part of his job, and is brave on his side to make it so evident,…however is not bad that he showed on certain moments his boredom, probably he’s gained a certain fame of “impenetrable” but that will obliges to the press to struggle the interviewers’ brain to make interesting questions, or rather the same ones, but in other words that make him believe that is entirely a question never posted before. On the other hand, he’s offered the opportunity to explain the role he played more in depth, which is always a good opportunity , and talking about Cillian, that we know that never chooses a project by the pay check, or the ambition for the movie to be a block-buster, I’d like to think that he embraces the interviews with a certain level of passion because he feels committed with the project he's been asked about.

Lack of ambition? Is that bad? I don’t see it as a disvantage to his acting career, but on the contrary, he will always be happy doing whatever project he’s in. If doing Misterman was not ambitious enough, then tell me what it is…(my God, night after night along two endless months he had to show the best of his acting skills to 900 people¡¡¡ If this is not ambition, then define what is it….)

Sorry for the rant, just my two cents.

[wikkleshamrocks]

I think passion and ambition are two completely different things Myriam Misterman was not ambition and he said that himself in a few interviews, it's the challenge and the enjoyment. I think you mean the energy and talent can be surmised as ambition but even people with ambition can make a balls of things. Cillian clearly did not make a balls of Misterman! ;D It's definitely passion with Cillian! ;D

I like this thread it's got a good lot of thought going on!

[Pisces]

I don't think the interviewer can be blamed when it comes to how an interview with Cillian turns out. Questions are only a seed; it's up to the subject of the interview to grow them into something beautiful. Cillian has been very frank about the fact that he is actively cultivating his dullness, so the questions he's asked are irrelevant. He might be asked the best questions in the world, by an intelligent and respectful journalist, and he'd shut it down anyway, because his only objective is communicating that he loathes interviews. If someone doesn't want to talk, they're not going to talk. A good conversationalist can turn ANY question into a fascinating reply, and a poor conversationalist knows how to kill it.

There's no point in him agreeing to interviews at this stage. He hates them, purposely spins them into tedium, and seems to feel he's too good for the entire process. He's given the same interview for a decade; if you've read one, you've read them all. Only now, there is more than a whiff of pretentiousness creeping in as well. I can't abide elitism. Or predictability. Both of which seem to be emanating in abundance from Cillian lately.

Not trying to come down too hard on him, I swear. But I think I will just stop reading his anemic interviews. I'm tired of feeling guilty and annoyed afterwards; I end up feeling like an enabler of a process that very few people seem to be enjoying. If there were less demand for his thoughts and words, perhaps journalists would stop calling him, and he'd be happier, as well.

[wikkleshamrocks]

Maybe that's what he's trying to achieve. Reporters get fed up of him and give up if he's monotonous? Then he's happy with less of the interview thing. But in person he really is naturally shy. People are complicated eh?

I come across as chatty but I'm pretty shy too which comes across as social snobbery if I stay quiet which bothered me when i was younger but now i couldn't care less. I can put that example on the way Cillian may come across as elitist Pisces.

If I was in his shoes I would probably do a much worse job of those interviews. In fact I have been guilty of worse when having cameras & mics shoved in my face when I did tours with skating. I hated it and I remember purposely being one worded or playing dumb to avoid more attention.

It depends on how we are perceived too and I don't think Cilly gives a flying hoot if he sounds as he does! Remember that the journalist holds the last card too and writes the account. That's the final result. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. The interviewee is sandwiched between the efforts of the journalist.

They always have that template of his story to his acting career and music thing but that seems to come as standard without asking him about it too much. Many other artists have that little template thing going on with journalism. He's definitely making his point.

Cillian comes alive when he's interviewed along with other artists who he has a good bond with though, like Enda for example. this supports the fact he is pretty intimidated when being interviewed alone especially and prefers the company of other interviewees to relieve the pressure. You would see this in his nature, in person. Just watch the interviews on screen or listen on the podcasts, he just hands the whole thing over to the other interviewees if he can and sits there quietly and happy counting the seconds going by in his head... one more second over... tick tock and he even looks like he's falling asleep on some of them! ;D

I'm just glad he's not with the plastic, fake, attention seeking, talentless wannabes. He does a good job of his motto... To not behave like a celebrity and I'd rather have a boring, monotonous and slightly jaded Cillian compared to that!

[Cait]

I think you all have valid points, and I respect your opinions. That being said, Cillian hating interviews is not news to us. That's the way he's always been, and he's never been afraid to voice it. It's just something I have personally gotten used to over the years. Sure, I'd love for him to open up a bit more, I think we all would, but it's not likely to happen.

I don't think the comment about Robert De Niro was Cillian being elitist, but I do think that was a bad example for him to use, and now I feel he is being misunderstood, which is something I think happens to him a lot. Either way, I'm not going to get bent out of shape over one comment.

This is just my opinion. I'm not saying anything else on this subject, but the thoughts from all of you are definitely interesting.

[thehyacinthgirl]

I just find it all very contradictory. He talks about his bread and butter being small films and telly then quotes John Lennon. "I was the walrus but now I'm John." I just don't get it. If you're selling yourself short (which he is) you don't quote John Lennon, who most definitely was not. I find it equally bizarre that he quoted these lyrics in conjunction with an interview such as this one. Such as ANY of them, in fact, in which he yet again implies he is tired with the whole process. He's the Lycos.com web designer who quotes Mark Zuckerberg then in the same breath says "but I really can't stand the internet."

The purpose of interviews are to promote a project or an actor. They're doing him a favour. A utility for him. A vessel, in a lot of ways. If he treats them right and gives a good interview they'll give a good image and impression of him. It's part of his job. If he doesn't want to utilise interview correctly why do them? Expressing such blatant disdain for something that could actually do him a favour, career-wise, makes very very little sense to me. Someone said "if the journalist and the questions are decent then he opens up like a flower" or the like. Like Pisces says, a question is what you make of it. You can give a 'no comment' or you can twist a tale. You can give away as much or as little as you like. You can give nothing...or you can give something. Anything. Which one leaves the better lasting impression? The one who almost resents being asked the question or the one who makes the most of it? I just find it sad, really. He refuses to answer the simplest of questions. There's no point even reading his interviews because we've heard it all before. He's still reading off the 2005 hymn sheet. People get bored of the same old, same old.

Lets put it another way. Here's an actor who is ahead of the majority in terms of acting - yet, he comes across as resenting the entire process. Taking it for granted, even. So - he's got all this talent yet he doesn't really want to push himself to DO much with it (I don't care what anyone says, BBC2 telly is a massive step back - hardly anyone even watches BBC2. It's not even BBC's main channel and specialises mostly in non-mainstream productions, i.e. stuff that's not everyone's cup of tea - yet, he was in Inception. Look at what Inception's OTHER stars have done with their exposure and compare that to Cillian). He's got all this ability but he doesn't want to promote himself in order to cultivate work from it. He's got all this uniqueness yet he wants to blend into bland obscurity by giving the same old passive aggressive, negative interview again and again and again. Yes, we get it. He was in a band when he was a kid. Yes, we know. He hates interviews. But like I said, there are elements we ALL hate about our job but we're professional enough to bite our tongues because we know what side our bread is buttered. We don't sit there and blatantly throw that in the face of a person who is simply doing THEIR job, especially when their job is of some benefit.

Can you see how little appeal he'd have to a director? Will only work locally. Prefers low budget. Won't do decent interviews. Detests promotion (and when he does it often appears bored and repeats the same old cliches he's been spouting for years - I swear, I can quote him before he even speaks). Comes across as passive aggressive, bored and shut down when he actually DOES do an interview. He's hardly the poster-child for 'good investment'. Even Nolan appears to have moved on. And now, since he's been off the screens since 2010 for the majority (not including limited release rubbish like Red Lights, flops like In Time and pointless cameos in Batman) he's in danger of being replaced. It's a very fast moving job he's in. It's also very subjective and unforgiving. Coming off the back of a number of flops, maybe the truth is he is only being offered crappy scripts or telly work. Who knows? It might well be that he's jumping before he's pushed; that he's playing it like it's what he wants but in reality it's all he's being offered. Like I said, Hollywood moves on.

I just find it sad to see him a) wasting his talent on telly and low budget and b) sabotaging interviews because he avidly detests them. I know if I were a journalist I'd think he was a pretentious prat and would dread going near him.

You'll all hate me for saying that but it's how I feel and I know I'm not the only person who feels that way. I spent hundreds going to see him in a play. I've seen every film he's in. I think he's a fabulous actor. But there's nothing I find more offputting than a person with immense talent who doesn't want to make the most of it. And that's what I feel from Cillian.

[dulcemirita]

I couldn't help but feeling a little bit dishearted to read what you've said, although of course I can see your point, i'ts not a non-sense what you're saying...I don't get to see it that way, though. I also think that in a way, he is wasting his hughe talent on minor projects with no repercussion at all (except his latest stage work, who obviously only had its echoes in NY and London) but for the vast majority of public he's still Cillian who????It's true that his interviews are a dèjá vu after another...but not everybody knows them "by heart" as we do, general public usually see a couple of them and surely they will find then different and interesting, but what else if he's asked the same very questions over and over again? He might be tired of being imaginative and original while giving answers, yet I don't think he had such an indolent and bad image while being interviewed as the one projected by Hyackinth's comments. The interviewer is the best one to realize that he's not been the first on asking a certain question, but is up to Cillian to make a whole tale of the reply to be given, probably some of his talent should be thrown a little bit on his answers, I agree. But I',m not specially bothered by his attitude, still I find him charming and talkative. As far as I know, I've never heard of any journalist naming him as an icky person.

And I've suffered from being the interviewer, (remember this?uinterview.com/videos/cillian-murphy-and-rodrigo-cortes-on-red-lights) and much to my dismay I ended asking him the questions which answers I've heard before. Well, in my case I was misanderstood: I asked him that wich part was the best to work in Red Lights and which part was the worse, if any... and his answer pleased me a lot (although I've heard it before)

"As an actor, you want to work with people that have a clear, strong vision because then you trust them and then you’re able to be brave in your choices, hopefully"

it wasn't was I expected to be answered! I expected to be witty or sarcastic regarding on "the worse part" to work with Cortes, but he eluded the proper answer.... ;D

Anyway, I haven't reach the point to get tired of him (I'm practically "arrived" to him this year) I mean. about this very aspect of his professional live, but I know I will be in love with his talent for ever...

By the way, Hyacinth...why did you bring up to this thread the Cillian's reading on the video he recorded with Lennon's song God lyrics? Surely he did what he was told to do, I don't think that he felt idenfified with it, if so just with the very last phrase: I just believe in me. The rest, as John Lennon's words, not Cillian's,

And here you have a very cheeeeesy vid with an even more cheeeesy song recently uploaded to illustrate my feelings...