Cillian Murphy is known this year for Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer. But in 2005, the Irish actor worked with the Oscar-nominated director before playing the supervillainous Scarecrow in Batman Begins. That same year, Murphy played another villain in Wes Craven’s Red Eye, which the Golden Globe winner describes as “a good B movie.”
Wes Craven caught a Red Eye in the high skies thriller about a flight passenger (Rachel McAdams) who’s smitten by a man (Cillian Murphy) who happens to be her seat partner. What looks to be a meet-cute movie becomes a high-intensity thriller when her seat partner blackmails her into helping him with an assassination attempt. While on the cover of GQ, Murphy looked back on his time on Red Eye and actually wasn’t much of a fan of the movie.
“I love Rachel McAdams, and we had fun making it,” said the Oppenheimer star. “But I don’t think it’s a good movie. It’s a good B movie.”
2005 was, without a doubt, the year Cillian Murphy showed off his acting chops playing the bad guy. He was in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, playing an evil psychopharmacologist donning a scarecrow mask. In Red Eye, he was also just as creepy, putting an innocent lady in a scary situation 30,000 feet up in an aircraft with no escape.
All actors have their own reasons for why they choose to be part of projects. In this case, Cillian Murphy explained why Red Eye seemed like a good idea to him at the time.
“I think it’s the duality of it. It’s why I wanted to play it. That two thing. The nice guy and the bad guy in one. The only reason it appealed to me is you could do that. That turn, you know?”
What Did Critics Think of Cillian Murphy’s Red Eye Performance?
Cillian Murphy may not have thought much of Red Eye, but the critics sure liked it. The thriller currently has a critic’s score of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. Its critics consensus loved its “solid performances” and “tight direction” from Wes Craven.
Red Eye’s male lead got plenty of praise from critics for his talented performance. Film critic Roger Ebert thought Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams were “very effective together.” He also commended the Sunshine actor’s “ability to modulate his character instead of gnashing the scenery.”
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times felt Murphy was “a picture-perfect villain,” and USA Today‘s Claudia Puig found him “menacing.”
If you’d like to see Cillian Murphy’s haunting performance in Red Eye, it’s available to stream online on your Paramount+ subscription.
