Cillian Murphy, the star of the new film Steve, has revealed why he is ‘doubly nervous’ when it comes to this latest project.
Steve is a new drama, directed by Tim Mielants, about a headteacher charged with caring for a school for boys with behavioural and social difficulties.
The film takes place in one day where the school tackles a film crew filming a news segment, and troubling news about the school’s future. As things come to a head, the teachers and students are facing their own private battles.
The film has already had positive feedback since premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, but the star Cillian, 49, has revealed he is still nervous about the film’s release.
‘You’re always nervous, so I’m not finished until the audience sees it. I’m very proud of it.’
The Oppenheimer actor produced the film with his frequent collaborator Alan Moloney and their production company Big Things Films.
When asked if his experience is different because he is a producer on the film, not just an actor, he confirmed it only upped the ante.
‘It’s doubly nervous because that’s what makes it more stressful!’
He added: ‘Yeah, but the reaction’s been brilliant so far.’
The film has received a lot of positive reactions so far, earning a 72% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Cillian explained that seeing the reactions from teachers has been particularly powerful.
‘I feel like how have you felt seeing people’s reactions to it, it’s been great, particularly educators, you know.
‘Teachers and social workers, you know, caregivers, they really responded to the film and they’re really the people who made it for.’
Cillian’s parents, who were also once teachers, haven’t yet seen the film just yet.
‘My mum and dad have not seen it, and they’re retired teachers, so I’m looking forward to them seeing it.’
And is there anything he’s nervous about them seeing?
‘No, they’ve seen everything, so they, they’re well used to it,’ he said with a cheeky smile.
The actor confessed that he ‘needed a rest’ after playing the emotionally distressed and permanently stressed character Steve.
When asked if he found the character hard to shake off, he explained: ‘It’s, it’s like if you do anything for 16, 17 hours a day, that’s what happens, you end up, there’s an exchange of atoms, I think.
‘And you just need a rest after it, but it’s not about shaking it off. It’s about a lot of displaced energy, I suppose.’
The film was made in collaboration with Netflix and stars Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo, and Simbi Ajikawo (Little Simz).
Max Porter, the writer of the novella the film was based on, Shy, and the screenwriter for Steve, has worked with Cillian on a play, Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, released in 2019.
Comparing their time working together then and now, Max commented that Cillian was the exact same, but possibly a little ‘jangled’ after the events of 2023, the year that saw him helm the huge film, Oppenheimer.
‘The man is absolutely who he is, I mean obviously, he was a bit jangled after the year before last, that’s a big thing for a person to go through.
‘But yeah, we got straight into it, he likes to be busy, he likes to work. He’s a gloriously collaborative person, lovely in producer mode, lovely in friend mode.’
Max explained that he made the role specifically for Cillian and was keen to tell a story about teachers and about people who are struggling.
‘I had a particular interest in telling a story about someone who is struggling. because many people are. And I think it’s underrepresented or underinvestigated how we disguise our behaviours and how we perform different versions of our behaviours to different people at different times.
‘We’re living in an epidemic of mental health crisis, and there’s a genocide going on, and I wanted to get into the storm of one person’s struggles, and I knew he [Murphy] could do that as an actor.’
Steve is released in cinemas on September 19 and comes to Netflix on October 3.
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