Cillian Murphy Loves The Christopher Nolan Movies Without Him, For A Very Specific Reason

Cillian Murphy may be the star of Oppenheimer, but it’s not his first Christopher Nolan rodeo. One of his first big roles after breaking through with 28 Days Later was Scarecrow in Batman Begins. He reprised the role, briefly, in The Dark Knight, then again, also briefly, in The Dark Knight Rises. In between those two he was the mark in Inception. Later he had a small role in Dunkirk. That’s six Nolans — half the director’s filmography! But apparently it’s the other half that contains Murphy’s favorite of the filmmaker’s oeuvre.

In a new interview with The Independent (as caught by The AV Club), Murphy gushed about Interstellar, one of the Nolans that doesn’t feature him, not even in a walk-on.

“I adore Interstellar just because I find it so emotional,” he said. He recalled seeing it when his kids were little, and surely a film about a father who abandons his kids for a space jaunt — and in which they get older but he stays the same age — would chip away at a dad. It just had a big impact on me. It broke my heart.”

He then admitted something, “I love watching his films when I’m not in them because you don’t have to freak out about the size of your ears, or whatever.”

Murphy was also inevitably asked about “Barbenheimer,” surely for about the zillionth time. The question was a bit more creative, asking him to swap out Oppenheimer for another Nolan to see on a double with Barbie. He gamely floated two. Interstellar, he chose because it “explores similar scientific, physic themes” (to Oppenheimer, he means, not Barbie). His second was Dunkirk, which is also about World War II and which is also, crucially, “shorter.” After all, a combined five hours is a lot. Still, he could have chosen Nolan’s debut feature, the 70-minute Following.