Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Cillian Murphy on ‘Steve,’ Life After ‘Oppenheimer,’ and the ‘Peaky Blinders’ Movie

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

Known for his early roles in Disco Pigs and Peaky Blinders, Cillian Murphy’s career reached new heights with his Oscar-winning performance in Oppenheimer, a script he calls one of the greatest things he’s ever read. Murphy sits down with Willie Geist to reflect on the cultural phenomenon of Oppenheimer, including his surprise that its complex structure and themes connected with such a massive audience and how Christopher Nolan’s bold decision to write the script in the first person shaped his performance. He also opens up about his latest project, Steve, a heartfelt story of a teacher fighting to hold his school together while grappling with his own struggles mirrored by the challenges of one of his students, as well as what fans can expect from the upcoming Peaky Blinders movie. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Got a great one for you this week with Academy Award winner, Killian Murphy. You probably know him best as the lead in the 2023 Blockbuster Oppenheimer, in which he played Jay Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. Of course, that movie made like a billion dollars at the box office was paired. You'll remember that summer with the Barbie movie, the Barbinheimer phenomenon. He starred in that film that won an armful of Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Christopher Nolan,

and Best Actor for Killian Murphy himself. Killian and Christopher Nolan have been working together for 20 years on the Batman movies, on Inception. They have this really cool professional partnership. He's from Ireland. He doesn't do a lot of interviews. Kind of a mild-mannered guy, absolutely unimpressed and not caught up with the Hollywood thing.

Doesn't live anywhere near Los Angeles. You'll hear him talk about how little things change for him after the Academy Award. He just likes to do good work and live his life quietly. And we kind of get into why he thinks that's actually so important. So I won't go through his whole IMDB page with you because we talk about it, but kind of had his breakout with 28 days later more than 20 years ago. Such a fascinating guy. Now sitting down with me to talk about his new Netflix film called Steve, that has people

talking about Academy Awards again. He is Steve in this movie. It's a story of a dedicated but troubled himself, reform school teacher in the United Kingdom back in the 90s. Him sort of managing this group of boys while going through his own stuff as well. Follows him through this frenetic day in his own life. It's an incredible, beautiful movie. And his first since Oppenheimer couldn't be more different. Smaller little ensemble cast. He's the star a little bit different than Oppenheimer. So I'll get out of the way, let you sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation right now with Oscar winner, Killian Murphy on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Gillian, great to see you. Thank you for doing this. Pleasure.

Hope you feel at least somewhat at home in our surroundings here, a touch. It's a lovely place. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's been a beautiful. Yeah. I'm so happy to be talking to you about your film, Steve, which I was just telling you I watched, and then today watched parts of a few more times because they were so beautifully written. acted. And I think probably good to start by just setting the scene for people about who Steve is, where he finds himself. Better to hear from you than from me. So how do you describe it to people?

Well, how it came about as a film is because I'm very good friends with the writer of the novella shy Max Porter. We've made two pieces of work together, and this is the third piece. And I'm And we stay in touch all the time. We're just talking. He's three boys. I have two boys. We talk a lot about the boys. We talk a lot about arts.

We talk a lot about politics. And we have a lot of, we joke around as well. It's not all pretentious. And anyway, I had read this novel when he sent it to me as a proof copy and I read it. And I had no intention or no ambition to, make a movie out of it because it felt kind of unfilmable to me because it's all written in the point of view of the

young kid shy and it's like an internal monologue and it's first person and then Max had this idea of like kind of spinning the story on its access and telling it through the through the eyes of the headmaster

of the school who appears in the novel very briefly as a minor minor character and having the two stories overlapping over the course of one day So it all takes place in 1996 in the reform school in the UK. And it's the story of this teacher, Steve, who I play, trying to desperately keep this thing going. And it's the worst day you could possibly imagine for him

where everything seems to just be collapsing around him. And then it precipitates this kind of, I guess, kind of breakdown for him while simultaneously, this kid that he's trying to reach is also really, really struggling. But, like, hopefully it's very funny and engaging and not, you know, all doom and gloom. But it does kind of, like, it is kind of, I think, poking at some pretty big themes, hopefully. Absolutely. I mean, a lot that's happening in our society as we speak.

It doesn't have to be 1996 with young boys, as you know, and I know with the son of my own. So I'm just curious when you've reached. read this novel, you see it one way through the eyes of shy. Yeah. Was it Max's idea or yours to shift that lens and put it through the eyes of the teacher instead? That was Max. That was Max. Yeah.

And I think when he was writing the novel, he had written this whole segment about Steve that he decided not to put into the novel. Because this is a very short little book, but incredibly powerful. And so we had this document that existed. So then when he went back to write the script, he had all this material to draw. It's such a celebration, too, and an affirmation of teachers and people who give everything for often other people's children and see light and hope in places that others haven't seen in some of these kids, particularly at this reform school. And your parents are teachers, your family are teachers, going to aunts and uncles and everything else. So what did you draw on for this character? Yeah, so both my teachers are retired teachers, and my dad, in fact, kind of became an inspector of school, so he would go in an inspect teachers.

I had all the education, and my grandfather was a headmaster. And I think when I was growing up, I didn't pay any attention to it, really, other than the fact that I would get extra lessons at home from my mom and dad after school as well, which I was not a fan of. More school. More school. But as I've gotten older, I kind of look back in it and I really admired them for like both working and then coming home after standing up in front of a class of 35 teenagers each with their own individual issue. I mean mainstream school, but like each with their own individual issues and everything. And you're trying to kind of wrestle control of that class. then coming home and having to look after four of us and like cook dinner and then do all of the

marking exam papers and all of that and then get up and do it again and like it's it's it's a lot of work and a lot of commitment and it i think it takes a lot from teachers um and then of course i was in school and probably was the easiest kid in the world to teach uh and then i also had a very important teacher when I was in secondary high school, an English teacher who really unlocked literature and poetry and theater for me. So I kind of felt like I had just through my formative years kind of experienced every angle of it, really. This is a more extreme version because these kids are all struggling. They all have issues. They're all excluded from school. They're potentially violent. They could.

be in prison if they weren't in school here. So you're turning up the kind of dramatic tone in the piece because it's set in this sort of a school. Everything is very charged. But I did feel like there wasn't a huge amount of research I needed to do. Steve loves these boys. It comes across in the way he talks to them,

the way he soothes them, the way he talks about them to other people. Yeah. Where do you think for him, and I guess you could say the same of all teachers, that love comes from when he's not always certainly in this case getting it back yeah he's not getting rich off the job none of those things yeah what is that bond as you see it between steve and those boys i mean i think that's the big question as to why teachers keep doing what they do because

it's a very selfless job and you're giving so much um and as we all know it's it's underpaid they're undervalued. Like in Ireland, for example, on a teacher's salary, you cannot afford to live in or around the two major cities like Dublin and Cork. It's impossible. So there's a teacher shortage in Ireland because they can't afford to buy houses, you know.

But that aside, to answer your question, I think it's probably because there are times when you really, really connect with a kid and you've got to. can really, really help a kid and you can see over time the improvement that happens when you have that connection or you reach a kid who then stops being just a sort of a someone on the roll call or a statistic or a quote-unquote problem or whatever it is or you see some kid that has a particular sort of gift that hasn't been identified.

and so I think all of that, but I don't know if there's one particular answer. I'm not a teacher. I knew very early it wasn't going to be one. But I do think it's that thing that when it works, it must be so satisfying. Because I think it's vocational. I think it's like a calling.

Yes. And what's beautiful about Steve, too, is he really loves each of these boys. And it reveals itself without giving too much away in this final monologue. that we were discussing earlier where you can, we don't actually see his face, but you can hear in his voice a smile.

Yeah. And a love. And he's describing each boy what makes him great. Yeah. And trying to teach them that there's something else out there. Just hang in for, hang in, and there's something else out there. He loves all these boys.

He really does. He really does. Yeah. And it's a very, very non-judgmental, yes. Very compassionate approach to kind of education. And that's, I think, Certainly, I think that's what Max believes in, because Max is one of these writers who doesn't just write the book and then, like, you know, sit back and wait for the royalties to come in.

Like, he goes, he goes and works with these kids and he goes into prisons and he mentors kids. Like, he really, he really acts on his beliefs, you know, on his value. So a lot of this, the philosophy of it is coming from Max. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more. from Killian Murphy right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Killian Murphy. The film is frenetic.

I think it's fair to say. I mean, it just grabs a whole of you at the beginning and for 90 minutes doesn't really let you go. What was that like for you as an actor? I know you shot it in a, for you, a fairly limited amount of time a month or so, maybe a little less. And in order, you just went through and told the story,

which is unique for people who don't know how movies are made. So what was this experience like you may be different from other films you've done. The shooting in sequence chronologically was massive. That was something that I've only ever once done that. I did it on a Ken Loach film. It's Ken Loach, oh, it was like a master filmmaker,

and I feel deeply privileged to have worked with him like 20 years ago, and he had a massive impact on me as an actor and a person, in fact. But he insists upon shooting in order always, because he, sometimes it works a lot with non-professional actors. And anyway, he believes that if you're going to kind of live the story, you should live in sequence as best as you possibly can. And we were more or less in one location. So from the very beginning, we began to block out the schedule so we could do that.

And then because there was a lot of kids that hadn't really worked before, we could do it that way. So for me, it was amazing because you started off on day one, which day one was like, you know, Weaning Shy and going into the school and seeing that this documentary crew was there

that he had forgotten about. So anyway, where you're accumulating the emotional information experience as you go. Yeah, it was kind of exhausting and, and I wanted to go into it like, in a reactive way.

So I didn't really plan anything in terms of how, there was no accent required. There was no real massive physical transformation required or anything like that. It was just trying to be in the moment experiencing it as the character would experience. And Timien and so I've worked with several times would like keep the pressure on all the time. And sometimes he would like have stuff happening camera that we weren't expecting. And the whole thing was to portray a character who has a deficit of time and a deficit of

sleep and a deficit of energy and a deficit of resources and is just like you know constantly trying to catch up but at the same time he's as you say he's a really really good teacher and he really believes in the thing but he's just behind the curve constantly and constantly exhaustive and he's got his own life at home as well as we later it's not just these boys get his own girls at home yeah it's the balance of that yeah i remember when i read the script because that That was obviously new from the novel. When I read that bit about he returns home when he's two little girls of his own,

you know, that brought home that thing of my parents, going back to the four of us, that you have to continue then when you get home. And he's just worked a whole night. So, like, we watch it in the cinema with audiences when he come home when they see the kids, you just hear this gasp. Because they can't believe that he's...

And we're very keen to, like, not have a wedding band or not have any communication with the family throughout the day. So he manages to compartmentalize his work from his personal life, which a lot of people do because they just can't keep both going at the same time. And you can almost see him. He opens that or summon the energy. Okay. Yes, I owe them as much as I'm giving at work.

It's a beautiful moment in the film. You mentioned the young actors you work with. Boy, are they extraordinary? These young men, most of whom, I don't think most, most people will recognize. These are some of them new actors. Amazing. Were you astounded by how good they were?

Absolutely in all of them. And I remember because Tim and Max did workshops with the boys for about two weeks before we began shooting, like on-site in the school. And I was there for that. And I just sit in and sometimes participate. But they were mostly just like workshopping. And it was, he started to go, oh, shit.

These guys are just going to blow me off the screen. I have to step up here because all of that energy and like hunger and dedication to it, you know, that you have to try and sustain over a career, which is the hardest part in some ways to kind of keep that love for it going, you know. But they have it. And Jay, like Kergo, who plays shy, just a magnificent actor and just magnetic on screen. but when you get in a room with them, that energy, it was kind of infectious. Yeah, and they're all, I mean, I'm sure they were

in their private moments, but they stood toe to toe with you. I mean, I'm sure they were as nervous as you were. Oh, Killion Murphy. They, well, they didn't feel it. They didn't give that away. No, they were, and they became a real unit, like a real gang. Because I think, because they're shooting it chronologically

and now they're still like a real gang and everything. So we were very lucky, but that's a credit to Tim Meeland's, and he gave them all their own real backstory. They all knew exactly why they were there. They all knew their position in this sort of hierarchy of the group, and they all had their like different sort of cliques that they were in. So everybody, they weren't just turning up and saying their lines. They had a whole sort of, you know, they had a whole world that they had created for themselves within this, within the dynamic of the school. You've done the biggest imaginable movies, you know, all the Christopher Nolan and Oppenheimer. I think this was right after you'd finished all the press and the award season for

Oppenheimer. Was that a bit of, was Steve a bit, I don't want to say the word breather, because it's certainly not a breather, but was it a nice change of pace coming out of the hysteria, frankly, around Oppenheimer? These things are really never planned, you know, a lot of people ask me that question and I think, oh, you strategically go from a big studio film to a little, I mean, it's still a studio film, but it's just, I suppose, a smaller, if you measure it by budget, but certainly not for me, in terms of what it's trying to say or its ambition, but, no, we'd been working on the script. I was working on the script kind of as we went along when I was doing all that stuff with Chris and the cast, and then when I finished, pretty much went

straight into it. I think that was my kind of coping mechanism. Sure. Go straight back to work, which is probably not that most healthy. Well, it's worked out. It's a brilliant film. It really is. I can't wait to the reviews. I bet you don't read reviews, but... Oh, I read them all. On this one, on this one, because I'm a producer on it, like, it's, you kind of have to... Oh, you have then? Yeah. So you've seen the feedback as good.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's been really, really positive and we're really, really chuffed. But, you know, we've shown it to teachers' groups and carers and young adults in these situations. They, we've had the most amazing responses, and that is kind of worth more than any fancy review, really. Right. Yeah, you mentioned your English teacher who introduced you the literature. Bill Wall is his name. Bill Wall. And your parents, obviously being educators as well, growing up in County Cork.

Yeah. At what point along the way, Killion, did you start to see performance as something viable for you or something that you enjoy? Because I know, like, you grew up in sort of a sports-focused culture, like a lot of American kids who find themselves, wait a minute, I'm not good at this thing with the ball. What else is out there for me? Yeah. So was that something performance that maybe your teacher or someone else helped you latch on to as another way as a young boy? it was a kind of uh it was for me it was really really clear from a young age like i felt it sounds cliche but you hear people say but it's the truth i felt very safe and comfortable on a

stage um from a very young age and i was always getting up and doing little shows for for me it was always music i was playing music from a very young age and um as it was laser focused on making music and being in a band and being a musician and having a career as a musician. And then there was a point, actually in 1996, where that kind of dream died. This is the sons of Mr. Green jeans? Yeah. But you got a record deal, didn't you? Or an offer for one? And why didn't you take it? Well, my brother is in the band and he was very young and our parents just vetoed it for him. Right. And, you know, in retrospect, he was very, you know, in retrospect, he was, probably the right, this very, it's a cruel, cruel industry, as we know. And it didn't happen.

But it, like, it made me kind of have to pivot to theater because I needed, I wanted to be performing. So then that performance gene just came out in a different way in theater. So, you know, I wouldn't change it. Like, so what was the leap for you from that stage with music to the stage with theater, what triggered your interest and said, oh, I could do that. It's different from music, obviously, but it's standing on a stage and performing. What was that leap for you? When did that happen? When I was about 17, I went to, I'd never been to the theater. When I was about 17, I went to a production of, a stage production of a clockwork orange in a

nightclub in Cork City, where I'm from. And it was this promenade version, and it was incredibly dangerous and sexy and people, like all the droogs were like on stills and it was like techno music and dry ice. And it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen in my life. And it was produced by this company called Kirk Durka in Cork City. And then when I left school, I just basically went and knocked on the door

and, you know, just really pestered. them in pubs and stuff to give me an audition for a play and that was how it happened and that's how it started that's amazing you mentioned that month i think it was august of 96 when you get the record deal yeah um you fail your law exams apologies for bringing that up that's what i did you met your future wife yeah and then you auditioned for really your first role in disco pigs yeah and get it uh yeah so everything that really has guided your life since then happened in the space of a few weeks which is kind of extraordinary. It's mad. Yeah. Disco Pigs was your launch. Fair to say? Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. As a play and then a touring production and then a film. Yeah. Was that the moment once you landed

that? You said, this is it for me. This is the life. I want to be an actor. Yeah, I think so. I think so. The play started off like as a two-week run in Cork City in a tiny, tiny little venue. immediately it was a kind of sensation. And then we, like, so I'd never done a professional piece theater before. And then all of a sudden, this thing was touring around. And so it was the luckiest possible break you could have as an actor, like your first ever gig. And so I was delighted myself and I might as well give this a go. I really didn't know how long it would take or how long it would last.

and but we toured that for 18 months and then I just then I wasn't employed for about a year I think but I was kind of into that too I dropped out of school and I was kind of into that this is after the touring and before the film yeah or then I did more more plays yeah but like

I decided then there was the I was into that the thing about it was because as an actor you're you're you're autonomous right you like you make your own decisions when being in a band is

five guys and you're trying to, everyone has to make, it's a democracy and, and it, you know, it's difficult. And whereas I love the freedom just going, this is what I want to do. I'm going to do this. And off I went. And how was the leap for you from the stage to films? Because not terribly long after the Disco Pigs movie comes 28 days later. Yeah.

And all the other films that kind of started roll up into Batman begins with Christopher Nolan in 2005. did you enjoy the film production? Because some stage actors like that live audience better and that experience of it. How did you adjust to being in these big movies off the stage? Well, it was very gradual, really, because I did a lot of theater and then I did short films,

and then I did like a little part in some Irish films, then a slightly bigger part. So it wasn't, it was very, like, the graph was quite, even and I think it would have been terrifying if I was ricocheted into it like a big huge movie and then it and then it kind of the movie with Danny 28 days later was the first time that a film really got recognized and then Chris Nolan saw that movie and and then but then you know it was a small part about a really nice part about the villain but you know it was Christian Bale's movie and so It was kind of gradual, which I'm really happy about, that the whole thing happened in an incremental way rather than a terrifyingly, in sort of quick way, you know.

It did start one of your beautiful partnerships in film with Christopher Nolan, though, at inception and through the other Batman films, obviously, through Oppenheimer. We know as fans of his, as viewers, what a Christopher Nolan movie looks like from the outside, but as an actor, what is that experience like? Why is it unique and why do you keep coming back for more to work with him? Well, the thing that when I remember going on to the Batman set the very first time, and I was used to making these smaller independent films, and even like 28 days later, we shot on like domestic cameras and it was very guerrilla style and very low budget. And then I go into Batman begins,

and there's these huge vast sets. But when we got down to the work, it was just me, in the other actor and one camera, and Chris Wright by the camera, and no video village, no monitors. And so it felt like independent filmmaking. And because his focus is completely on the performance. All the films that he's made are performance-driven. And he can do scale like nobody else and set pieces like nobody else.

But the care and attention that he puts on the performances, I think, are what set it apart. and he's an extraordinary director of actors. So that was shocking to me to realize, oh, it's the same. What he's prioritizing is the same as what. You get on a smaller independent film. He's just using his resources in a different way.

Yeah, that's such an interesting way to think about it, because I think people look sometimes at the spectacle of the film, but it really is about what's happening between. the actors. Always with Chris. And so I learned so much, so quickly from working with him. Yeah, I mean, he's, it's fun to watch you guys work together. And I've heard you say before, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but when he says I'm working on a project, I'd like you to be in it. You sort of just say yes. Send along the script anyway, but I'm going to do it. Always. I mean, I always just say, I mean, who wouldn't say yes to work with, you mean, any actor on

the planet, you know, would want to work with Chris. And when I first, like, I was bizarrely, he asked me to audition for Batman, like, that was my first encounter with him. And all I wanted to do was to just get in a room and say that I had a screen test. And then it turned into this other thing, you know, but he's, no, he's, I mean, he's a generational talent. I mean, he's one of the the greats that we'll speak of for generations, I think, to come. And I can't wait for for the new one. I know. You're excited to see it? Yeah. Yeah. It's always an event, isn't it? Oh, it's going to be a huge. This one's going to be particularly big, I imagine. And what? No phone call on this one? No, which is fun. You know, it's very like, and, and, uh, it, that, that's fine, you know,

because I remember, like, going to see, um, Interstellar. Yeah. And it's a much purer pleasure to go and and watch one of his films. I bet. When you don't have to look at yourself. Don't love seeing yourself on film, do you? No, but like, I'm getting better at it. Particularly in producing stuff, you have to watch it a gazillion time, so you learn a bit of objectivity, I think. Stick around for more of my conversation with Killian Murphy right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Killian Murphy.

When you guys were making Oppenheimer, did you have a sense that this was something special, not just because it was a Christopher Nolan movie with an extraordinary cast, but did it feel like something even bigger than other films you'd done before? I remember thinking when I read the script that I was one of the greatest things I had ever read.

He wrote the script in the first person. I talked about this when we were promoting it, but I never encountered that before. And I knew that, again, that sort of the themes of the script were pretty huge. But at the same time, we did think, or certainly I thought, you know, this is, I don't if it's instantly accessible because it is quite involved, quite a, you know, structurally complex film about physicists and, you know, the atomic bomb.

I don't know if that's ever with a cup of tea. but like some people are definitely going to go for it but then it just turn into this absolute phenomenon and none of us anticipated that I don't think how do you explain it other than it being a great film

but to be up against a billion dollars at the box office and Academy Award for yourself and others around the movie how do you explain the phenomenon that that film became I really do not know I don't know if anyone really does But I think what always, what I've always admired about Chris and Emma and the films that they make is that they never, they always presuppose a level of intelligence with their audience.

They never, ever patronize or talk down to their audience with their films. And they are, you need to work at the films, but the reward you get from working at the film is so huge. And I think that it just proves time and time again with their films that audiences are up for that. They're really up for the challenge of something very complex and rewarding and meaningful. And now, like you say, they've become these event movies, but it's just so refreshing to me that audiences are so smart. And we must never forget that, I think, a storyteller. Yeah, right. Don't undersell them. Never.

Yeah. They want that. They keep showing it. I think, and I don't know about you, but like when you read a novel or you watch it, I love having to put the effort in. Yes. You know, it's true. When it's passive or it kind of, it's not for me that, when you have to like work.

Yes. And you get something back from your own input. That's to me the most rewarding way of experiencing art, you know? And questioning things that maybe you believed before and grappling with them after the movie. Yeah. put the book down. That's it. And it had been provocative and asking questions, but not necessarily giving the answers.

Right, right. That's the stuff that I don't think. Well, it certainly did that. Winning the Academy Award for you, obviously a great achievement. Yeah. Did it change anything for you professionally to say Academy Award winner, Killian Murphy? Yeah, I don't know if I have enough distance on it yet to be able to give an answer to that.

sort of personally in my personal life and not in any way. That's why I said professional, I'm sure. At home it was. Oh, who cares? Yeah. But if it helps get these sorts of stories over the line or helps get them financed, then I'm definitely going to take full advantage of that. But I'm not really sure I have enough perspective.

Or I'm not really sure I'm cany enough about the business. to be able to sort of use it to my advantage. But I just, because, and the other thing is that, like, next year I'll have been acting for 30 years. And I think your instincts or your taste are so well established and formed at this stage. You know what I mean? You're just going to continue doing what you've always been attracted to. It's not going to, I'm not going to take a massive swerve in terms of the work that I want to do. It'll be the same that has been, since I was, you know,

a young actor because they're the types of stories I've always wanted to tell. But maybe the clout you earn with the Academy Award allows you to just get all those made through your production company, right? Not that you didn't have already, but it's a nice little extra nudge, perhaps. Perhaps, yeah. Perhaps, I'm not, again, it's difficult for me to juntly. One of the things I admire about you, Killian, is your complete disinterest in being a celebrity or a movie star and that you're an actor and you want to be known for your work.

You've pulled that off. Oh, which is to say people don't. know much about you or hopefully they don't follow you around and all that stuff. Why is that so important to you as an actor? Well, I've always felt that if you want to try and inhabit somebody convincingly that it seems sensible that there wouldn't be too much, that people wouldn't have an oppression of you as an individual that would some way inhibit your ability to do that. That's kind of what I've always felt.

And so therefore, and I like the transformative nature of acting. So if you can kind of keep that as a background, then I think it allows you more freedom as a performer, you know? Right. People don't look on the screen and see, oh, that's the guy from whatever it is. Yeah, and I like to kind of like do the work. do the promotion as best I can, and then like retreat. Yes, I get it. And I think also the best research you can do as an actor is to just like live your life

rather than this stuff which isn't real life, you know? Yeah. So I feel like that's where you learn. And then you can come back having lived more life and hopefully put it into the character. Right. So you don't retreat behind your walls because you've become this other thing. And you can't be out in the world, observing. and learning and...

Yeah, you know, you just are living and being with people and experience in life and engaging, and then that's... whatever you've accumulated in between projects, you bring that back in, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Before I let you go, Killing, I have to ask you about the Piki Blinders movie.

Oh, yeah. What should fans expect? Do we know anything about this yet? I know you're not going to give away the plot or anything, but how excited are you to be back with the character? Well, like, it's, I wanted to get it right, you know, I really wanted to get it right because it's, he made six series, six series and that's 36 hours of TV, all written by Stephen Knight. And I feel like we did, pulled off the thing of, like, each series, in my opinion,

becoming, like, richer and deeper as it progressed, which I think is a hard thing to do from a long, a long-running returning series. And so therefore I wanted the film to like top it and match it. And I feel like we did that. And we got this amazing script. We have an amazing director of Tom Harper. And I really had my fan goggles, if that's the right question. On the whole time, because I produced that as well.

And so trying to be sure that it was satisfying to the fans who have made the show what it is. They really kind of, they, like, that show got no real push. Right. From the beginning, you know, it just was word them out and people dressing up and people loving the music. And then it was self-generated by the fans. So I wanted it to be a good movie, first and foremost, but secondly, that the fans felt like they had got something they deserved. How gratifying that it was not the product of some big marketing campaign, but just word of mouth. Yeah. People talking on social media, you've seen the show. Yeah.

It was a real organic sort of groundswell that made that series what it was, right? And it's rare, and people go, why? What was it about it? And again, you just don't know. It's some weird alchemy of various elements that made it what it is. Primarily, I think it's the writing, you know, that was very original. But again, you just never know what clicks and what doesn't. Well, we can't wait to see it.

Congratulations in advance. Thank you. really congratulations on Steve. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful film that's heartbreaking a lot of ways, but also in the end, I feel like gives you hope. I think so. You know, I really do. That was our ambition anyway.

Well, thank you. It's a pleasure. Nice talking to Gillian. Thanks. Thanks, man. My big thanks to Killian for a great conversation. His film, Steve, is streaming now on Netflix. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week.

If you want to hear more of these conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune into Sunday today over on NBC. That's every weekend to see these interviews in real living color. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.