By Debbie McGoldrick

March madness will take on a whole new meaning next month for Cillian Murphy, who will be busy promoting two films, Sunshine and The Wind That Shakes the Barley, both due for release on March 16.

Barley, as most readers are likely aware, won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and tells the story of one Irish family’s struggle against the infamous British Black and Tans during the Irish Civil War of 1919.

Sunshine is a complete departure from the seriousness of that role. The sci-fi thriller sees Murphy playing the leader of a crew attempting to save mankind 50 years from now, when the sun is discovered to be dying. But, naturally, their mission is a tough one, and it takes all kinds of sinister twists and turns as the scientists attempt to save the world.

Science, as it happens, wasn’t Murphy’s favorite topic in school, so choosing such a role wasn’t a given. “Languages are what I enjoyed. I couldn’t do math or physics or any of the sciences. I dropped them all very quickly,” Murphy says in an interview in next month’s Premiere magazine.

“My aspiration has always been to not have a film on my filmography that I don’t want to talk about or that I’m not passionate about as a project. And so far I think I’ve achieved that,” he adds.

Murphy’s interview is an interesting one, as he’s forthright with his opinions on being Irish, and the profound impacts of the Irish-British conflict.

When asked if he thought IRA violence was necessary he replied, “I think that when a nation or a country is repressed, they will rise up. Someone said, ‘Sovereignty can’t be given. It has to be taken.’ I believe in that. But it was a lot simpler back then. There’s a very fine line now between a freedom fighter and a terrorist, and it’s very tricky.

“That conflict will always feed us, the Irish people, creatively, and there’s nothing you can do about that. You have this nation of poets, in a way, and then this centuries-old struggle. So it’s good combination for art, I guess, but not for the people that had to live through it.”

Murphy, together with his wife and toddler son, makes his home in London, and offers no apologies for not wanting to live in Ireland.

“I’m not sentimental about (being Irish). I recognize it is who I am, and I’m from Cork all the way back. And I love going home and I love Ireland, but I’m an actor first and foremost, and my extraction is secondary.

“And I don’t think I will ever live in Ireland. It’s very pretty and very small. I left there when I was 19, and I was quite happy to be out of there.”