Director Alexandre Aja Talks About 'The 9th Life of Louis Drax' and Mentions Jamie

Mentions Jamie at 3:50

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Cillian Murphy Talks About Jamie

HB: What was it like working with Jamie Dornan?

CM: We're lucky that we get on very well. We actually have a very similar approach to working, which is that you take the job very seriously and between action and cut, that's where your focus should be. And then there's a lot of levity in between and a lot of good fun. And you know, both being Irish, and we both have young families, we have a lot in common.

HB: You have similar career trajectories as well, each having successful TV shows alongside a film career.

CM: I guess so. But I was making films for a long time before I did Peaky Blinders. It only happened three years ago.

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Sean Ellis Talks About 'Anthropoid' and Mentions Jamie

*This interview contains strong spoilers.

Inverse - Why tackle a World War II movie now?

I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason. I’ve been preparing this since 2001, and I don’t say, “We should get this ready for 2016.” For me it’s about how I’m just obsessed with telling this story. The more I found out about it the more I thought, “This is what I want to make.”

How thorough did you get in your research into Operation Anthropoid before making the film?

Reading lots of books is the start, then looking on the internet. Then you actually go to the places and start interviewing people. You look through documents at the Ministry of Defense, you go to the war museums. You try to get lots of opinions, but the trouble with this story is everyone has an opinion about it. There’s three or four different stories about things that did or didn’t happen. You get all this conflicting information and, in a weird way, you’re a detective trying to piece it together in a way to tell it. What’s truth and what’s not? What feels like truth and what doesn’t?

Operation Anthropoid had been previously told on-screen in films like Operation Daybreak or the Czech film Atentát, but those haven’t been big hits. How did you want to separate your film from the way this story has been told before on-screen?

Filmmaking has changed a lot since those films. You look at them now and they’re dated. It’s a story that needs to continually be told… like 99 percent of the world doesn’t know about it. It’s a chance to tell the world a story that happened in a very culturally specific place but has universal themes. That’s movie-making gold.

What was the casting process like searching for the perfect Jan and Jozef?

They have to work together, so they have to complement each other. We cast Cillian first after he responded well to the script. Once he was in place it was simply: Who is his Jan? I hadn’t seen 50 Shades of Grey, but I had seen Jamie in The Fall and loved him in it, but I thought he was too dark for the role.

We met and talked about his character being a kind of puppy dog to Jozef, and somebody who doesn’t want to go through with it and maybe physically can’t. After that it felt right, so I talked to Cillian who said, “We’re both Irish, and I love him.”

Tara Lee Talks About 'The Fall' Season 3 and Jamie

“We’ve just finished shooting The Fall 3 and I think that’ll be out in the autumn.” 

Everyone wants to know what it’s like to work with Jamie Dornan, she said.

“He’s a lovely, lovely guy and very talented.” 

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Cillian Murphy Mentions Jamie

Nylon - Did you shut yourself off on this shoot?

Pretty much. We were shooting in Prague, which is a beautiful city. It’s a really nice place to be. My family did come over for periods. Given the schedule, it was pretty intense, and we shot very, very fast. It was like eight weeks. It does take over your life, though.

Do you think that short time-span impacted your performance or the film at all?

No. It’s an independent, mid-budget movie. Naturally, you have to shoot as quickly as you can, with availability and all those things. The atmosphere that [director] Sean [Ellis] established is very convivial. Jamie and I have a really good rapport. There’s a lot of laughing. That allows you to explore the darker stuff easier because you’re in a good place.



**********

Esquire - Did you film in the actual church?

We built a life-sized replica. It was extraordinary. In this film studio in Prague there was a full reproduction of that church, which we then blew the shit out of. It was strange because me and Jamie had shot almost the entire movie together and we shot it more or less chronologically. And then I went home while he shot his sequence in the church upstairs and he went home while I shot my sequence in the church crypts downstairs. So they were very separate. But it took about three weeks.

New Interview of Jamie with National Post

Jamie Dornan knows how to define the dark side as illustrated by his Fifty Shades of Grey sex fiend in film and his twisted serial killer on the series The Fall. Now he’s giving a real life reluctant war hero a try with his portrayal of Czech freedom fighter Jan Kubis in the WWII film Anthropoid.

Co-written and directed by Sean Ellis after he developed the project for nearly 15 years, the movie recounts Operation Anthropoid. It’s the code name for the 1941 mission of ex-patriots Kubis and Josef Gabchik (Cillian Murphy), who return to Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Their assignment is to assassinate high-ranking SS commander Reinhard Heydrich.

At a Manhattan hotel, Dornan, 34, discusses his work on Anthropoid and his career. Here are five key things he had to say.

1. Ellis’ undeniable obsession with the Anthropoid story becomes a Dornan inspiration

“You should always have a certain amount of obsession or at least be bold about what you want to accomplish,” says Dornan. “So I couldn’t fail to be hugely engrossed in the characters and the story, because Sean’s attention to detail went far beyond what he needed to do.”

2. The Dornan way of emoting

The actor says the screenplay indicated decisively that Jan is not the soldier or the killer type, “so I had a clear way into how to play him.”

“Jan was like a little brother to Josef and Jamie understood that almost immediately,” says Ellis.

New Interview of Jamie and Cillian Murphy with AOL Build

It's one of those stories that's so mind-blowing, you don't expect it to actually be true. But it is.

We're talking about "Anthropoid," the film directed by Sean Ellis and starring Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy as two Czech soldiers who plot to assassinate Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich, one of the highest-ranking German Nazi officials as well as one of the main architects of the Holocaust. And even when their plan implodes, they still succeed -- Heydrich died in Prague in 1942.

The story is powerful. But it goes beyond that.

"What did we take away from the movie? Just friendship, I would say. It's genuine. You don't always get that," says Dornan.

Of course, it's not exactly reciprocated, he jokes. "I've tried Cillian a million times this week and he doesn't answer. He doesn't get back to me. I heard that's the kind of guy he is. And it's true," says Dornan.

But in reality, "We're all genuinely proud of the movie. I'm very proud of Cillian and Sean and a tiny bit proud of myself."

Murphy has starred in such massive productions as "Inception" and "The Dark Knight" for Christopher Nolan, and is currently shooting the equally big-ticket World War II drama "Dunkirk" for the acclaimed director. But "Anthropoid" holds a very special place in his heart.

"Working in film, you go from job to job. You get very intensely involved with people. Sometimes you actually get a genuine friendship out of it. It's very rare," says Murphy.

Even his son, 9, was infatuated with Dornan.

"We do this thing with my kids sometimes: 'So if you're stuck on a desert island, who would you have with you?' My little boy was like, 'Who's the guy you did 'Anthropoid' with, Jamie? I'd take him. He's funny. And the guy from 'Fast & Furious.' Vin Diesel. He can help. You're just there for the comedy," says Murphy to Dornan, who looks faux-outraged.

"I can fight off pirates and (expletive!)" he exclaims.

Case closed.

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New Interview of Jamie and Cillian Murphy with THR

In Anthropoid, Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy play a pair of Czech operatives on a mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, one of the main architects of the Holocaust and the leader of Nazi forces in Czechoslovakia.

Although they're a team onscreen in the Bleecker Street release based on true events that hits theaters today, Dornan and Murphy didn't spend a lot of time together before filming to try to cultivate a close bond. But it seemed clear in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the film's release that a friendship has developed between the two.

As he talked about being a fan of Murphy's work, Dornan slipped in a subtle dig at his slightly older co-star, saying with a straight face, "Obviously he's a great deal older than me, so I've sort of grew up watching Cillian's work." Murphy immediately began laughing at Dornan's playful ribbing.

Apart from expressing their mutual admiration for one another, Dornan and Murphy talked about the research they did to play Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik, respectively, relying largely on the 15 years of research writer-director Sean Ellis said he put into the project before filming began.

Murphy, well-known for his roles in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, where he played the Scarecrow (he hasn't seen Zack Snyder's Batman v. Superman, he said) and Inception, is reteaming with Nolan for another World War II film, Dunkirk, which will be released next summer.

For Dornan, Anthropoid is a rare onscreen departure from his role as Christian Grey in Universal's ongoing Fifty Shades trilogy.

Dornan revealed that he felt significantly less pressure making the second and third films in a trilogy that launched with more than $570 million at the box office, adding that he thinks some of that initial anxiety may have crept into the first film. He also opened up about being in Nice during the Bastille Day terror attack and the struggle of returning to work the next day.

Writer-director Sean Ellis spent many years researching this part of history before filming began. What sort of research did you do to prepare for your roles?

Cillian Murphy: [We were very lucky that Sean researched the film for many years.] We sort of piggybacked on his knowledge, and he gave us a lot of materials, which we read. For me, the greatest resource was actually shooting the film in Prague. We were able to shoot in a lot of the locations where the mission actually happened and these guys existed, so that was kind of very affecting. We had a Czech crew and a lot of Czech actors. There's a great deal of authenticity to the project, and Sean was very anxious that that was the case from the beginning. You do your due diligence, you read as much as you can, and then, ultimately, I find that you discard that and you concentrate on the characters and you can draw on [the research] if you wish, but I think ultimately it's about bringing as much truth and honesty to the portrayal as possible.

Jamie Dornan: You're in a very nice position as an actor when you're portraying a piece of history that actually happened and portraying characters that actually existed. There's so much more to draw on and your research as an actor becomes much easier than if it's some fiction that you're trying to create a world around and background and history. When it's actually happened, that makes it much easier. There's plenty of information out there — books, online — about this part of history that research was very easy to come by.

New Interview of Jamie and Cillian Murphy with Inverse

Playing the real life heroes who may have single handedly turned the tide of World War II was a major responsibility, but Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan were up to the challenge.

As Czechoslovakian resistance fighters Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš in director Sean Ellis’s Anthropoid, they faced a harrowing story: Gabčík and Kubiš parachuted into Nazi-occupied Prague and cooked up a plot to assassinate SS commander Reinhard Heydrich with limited resources, little in the way of operations intelligence, and plenty of espionage that could have unraveled their entire fateful mission. Add in Ellis’ realistic approach, and it was a harrowing job on a harrowing film.

Inverse met with Murphy and Dornan to talk about playing real life war heroes, and whether a method acting approach works for them.

Were you guys aware of Operation Anthropoid before reading the script?

Jamie Dornan: Not at all. Didn’t have a clue.

Cillian Murphy: I don’t think many people were familiar with it, but for Czech people it’s a huge part of their history. It was a defining moment and changed the course of the war. There’s still huge amounts of the Second World War that are still unexplored, and that’s why it’s such a great mine for writers and directors.

What did director Sean Ellis bring to the production? He was pulling double duty with a lot of behinds the scenes responsibilities on this film.

JD: It’s a crazy thing to watch, but very impressive to watch him operate the camera handheld and directing by giving you a note on a scene by keeping the film rolling. Keeping that energy up keeps you in it because it never drops. Luckily Cillian and I are actors who both respond to that. A lot of actors wouldn’t like rolling takes, but it keeps things very fresh.

CM: It makes a real connection because he was so invested in it. When we were running around the church or in the water in the crypt in the climax he was there too. He was experiencing everything we were, so the whole thing was so equitable.

New Interview of Jamie, Sean Ellis and 'Anthropoid' Cast with New York Times

New York Times - What's Jamie Dornan got to look forward to? The links.

While happy to be employed, the "Fifty Shades" hunk said he's been working on back-to-back projects for what seems like forever and can't wait to "play a bit of golf" as he chills at home in London with his wife and two young children later this year.

"They've been with me everywhere I've filmed but still I'd like to have more than just the weekends and the odd evening with them," Dornan said during a recent media tour. "It's time to be on daddy duty for a while."

So what's he been up to? Making the last two "Fifty Shades" movies, for starters, and wrapping the third season of "The Fall," the BBC series that launched his career.

There was also filming of a Netflix military thriller, "Jadotville," in a role based on a real-life commandant of an Irish UN contingent in the Congo. And then there's "Anthropoid," out Friday, another true-to-life war role, this one in Nazi-occupied Prague.

Oh, and he squeezed in "The 9th Life of Louis Drax," which has him playing a doctor with questionable judgment and cool mind-reading skills, against a boy in a coma.

Veering in and out of all of these worlds at a breakneck pace suits Dornan just fine.

"I love that aspect of it. My mind can be quite busy and sort of constantly kinetic and I think ... I've picked a good profession to sort of enable that," he said. "But sometimes it's tricky."

New BTS Pictures from 'Anthropoid' + Quotes from Jamie, Cillian Murphy and Sean Ellis

 

Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan together on the set of “Anthropoid,” the new World War II thriller from the fashion-photographer-turned-director Sean Ellis. “I can’t imagine the film without them,” Ellis says. “I met with Cillian and thought we were definitely on the same page. After reading the script he had some really great, insightful ideas about the character, and you go, yes, this is someone who’s just going to bring to really breathe life into Gabcik.”

Ellis (left) watches Dornan rehearse a scene from behind the camera. Dornan remembers being taken with the script from his first read. “It all felt very human and very relatable,” he says.

Reinhard Heydrich, played by Detlef Bothe, points his gun at Jozef Gabcik (Murphy). The scene features one of the film’s big twists, which Ellis describes as “one of the great reversals, for me, in this story.” After learning about the details of Operation Anthropoid from a documentary, Ellis says, “I couldn’t believe it” — punctuating his statement with much stronger language.

Dornan (left) and Murphy head off on their mission. “He was a very, very successful photographer before he became a director,” Murphy says of Ellis. “The guy knows about photography like nobody else.”

Dornan as Jan Kubis. Ellis admired Dornan’s work as the sociopathic serial killer Paul Spector in the British drama “The Fall.” “I sort of said to him that he’d be opposite of Paul Spector,” Ellis says. “You’ve got to eradicate any of that darkness.”

Murphy and Dornan on the set of the final shootout in an exact replica of the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague. “They were the most intense days of filming,” Dornan says. “We were all running around from gunfire, and it’s a very hot, sweaty, sort of mad environment, I would say. It’s exhausting and totally immersive.”

For the movie’s final moments, which take place in the church’s crypt, the music was especially important. “I worked very closely with Robin Foster, the composer,” says Ellis, who commissioned the final music early in production. “I played it only twice and I wrote back to Robin and I said, ‘It’s the piece of music that we’re going to use; I can’t listen to it anymore because I do not want it to lose its power for me.’”

 Cillian Murphy

Murphy as Josef Gabcik. While Ellis saw Dornan’s character as “innocent,” Murphy’s Gabcik was a hardened realist. “In a weird way, Cillian’s got the darkness,” Ellis says. “He was very excited to explore that as an actor.”

Take a look at all the amazing BTS pictures from 'Anthropoid' HERE

Full 'Anthropoid' Production Notes - New Jamie Quotes + Sean Ellis and Cillian Murphy Talk About Jamie

Parts where Jamie talks about 'Anthropoid' + Sean Ellis and Cillian Murphy talk about Jamie

Casting Heroes

To bring the heroes of “Operation Anthropoid” to life, Ellis cast Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan in the lead roles of resistance fighters Josef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. “I could not be happier with what Jamie and Cillian accomplished,” says the director. “As Jan, Jamie does a masterful job of exuding rash vulnerability under intense pressure. Cillian found brilliant ways to manifest confidence and a cold-hearted determination that also masked a kind of moral anxiety that Josef seemed to experience.”

(...)

For Dornan, Anthropoid represents a significant departure from his recent turns as Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey and Paul Spector in the BBC2/Netflix series “The Fall.” “I was blown away by the story,” says Dornan, who first learned about “Operation Anthropoid” when he read the screenplay. “It’s fascinating that something of this magnitude could exist and yet people do not know about it.”

Before shooting began, Murphy and Dornan spent months researching the assassination they would dramatize on screen. “Sean gave me and Cillian this book called Operation Anthropoid which gives a blow-by-blow account of every detail of the mission,” Dornan says. “That became our bible.” Additionally the actors trained with a Czech group devoted to World War II re-enactments and the weaponry of the early 1940s. “These guys showed us how to load the gun, how to stand,” Murphy recalls. “We went to a real shooting range and fired live rounds. That’s when you realize how hard it is to handle these weapons.”

Once filming began, Dornan and Murphy forged a tight bond with director Ellis. “It felt very much like me and Sean and Jamie were making the film together,” Murphy says. “The atmosphere Sean creates on and off set is very familial and that feeling gets transferred onto the performances.”

(...)

Along with the physical and emotional demands of their roles, the actors had to master Czechoslovakian accents. Ellis decided to have the Nazi soldiers speak German to emphasize the fact that they are a foreign occupying army, while the resistance fighters speak Czechoslovak-tinged English.

“I was terrified at first by the idea of doing a Czech accent,” adds Dornan. “Unlike Russian, which you can really hang your hat on because it’s a stronger and more definitive accent, Czech is quite subtle really.”

(...)



Recreating 1940s Prague

(...)

For the scenes inside the cathedral, a replica of the church’s vast interior was built by more than 40 crew members at Barrandov Studios, one of the largest soundstages in Europe. The ceiling alone weighed 16 tons and was produced on the ground from 910 bags of concrete, 300 bags of plaster, nearly 1,000 square feet of glass and over 35,000 square feet of wooden boards. Crew members then hoisted the ceiling into position with 38 chain winches.

Dornan was floored by the accuracy of the cathedral set. “On a Tuesday, I went to the real cathedral and saw the actual spot where my character Jan took his last breath, which had a massive effect on me,” he recalls. “And then on Thursday I went to the set of the church. It blew my mind because it was literally identical. The attention to detail was like nothing I’ve ever seen, reproduced exactly to the scale of the church. Honestly, it’s the most impressive set I’ve ever seen in my life.”

(...)

Cillian Murphy Talks About 'Anthropoid' and Jamie with Slant Magazine

Slant Magazine: Josef diffuses tense situations, especially with Jan. How do you deal with stresses in your life? Are you a calm, forceful guy, like Josef?

Cillian Murphy: I could never put myself in the same category of those guys and that bravery and courage. I try to get through the day by being a reasonably nice and good person.

Slant Magazine: Josef suffers from survivor’s guilt. He feels responsible for risking—and losing—the lives of those he’s encountered in his operation to assassinate Heydrich. Can you speak to that aspect of his character? 

Cillian Murphy: It’s very kind of harrowing to figure out how to play it, and what is patriotism, and heroism, and real true courage. I don’t know. It never comes easy. There’s a high price to pay, and these guys didn’t have the benefit of history or hindsight or how it would be viewed. Josef’s way was to be as emotionally closed as possible, but he meets this girl [Anna Geislerová‘s Lenka] and they become romantically involved. His friendship with Jan is deep, but he tries to keep it closed because he can possibly die.

Slant Magazine: How did you and Jamie develop the bond between your characters? 

Cillian Murphy: When you make a film that’s a two-hander, you try to create chemistry. It’s a weird alchemy. We got lucky. We hadn’t worked together before. We had similar sense of humor and the same approach to work. We’ve stayed friends. We spent time together to the degree we developed a level of trust. We each have big emotional breakdowns in the film, and you have to trust the other actor in order go there.

Slant Magazine: What can you say about the climactic shootout, and being waist-deep in water? Those scenes must have been hell to film. 

Cillian Murphy: It’s rare enough to shoot a film in vaguely chronological order, but we endeavored to do that. I was in a tank in Prague. Jamie had finished shooting by then. I’m very proud of the film, but the second half is where it got wrenching.

Slant Magazine: How so? 

Cillian Murphy: The psychological and emotional weight is the hardest part of it. You knew these men actually lived and they died in this way. The inevitability of what was happening, and trying to process and rationalize it is difficult. You try to portray it convincingly.

Read full interview HERE

New Interview of Jamie and Cillian Murphy with Mashable

Mashable - The Fifty Shades of Grey and Peaky Blinders stars were pushed to new acting heights upon assuming the roles of Josef and Jan, two Czech soldiers sent to carry out "Operation Anthropoid," a little-known historical mission which ordered the assassination of SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler's third in command.

Though both actors were initially unfamiliar with the story, they found themselves utterly captivated by the script.

"I have this thing where if you read a script in totality without getting up to cut the grass or make a cup of tea, it’s a good sign," Murphy said. "It was very exciting."

Since Anthropoid is based on World War II events, one of the amazing things about shooting the film was that some of the original landmarks still existed, they said. Dornan said shooting on location in Prague was "hugely beneficial," and the sentimental nature of each location — a church where a battle took place in particular — helped the actors.

"To be able to visit the church, I mean it was so harrowing being there and seeing the bullet holes in the walls and cracks in the walls where the grenades had gone off, and then Sean built this to-scale set version of the church...they were genuinely identical," he said.

Knowing the film is based off of true events further inspired Dornan and Murphy. "A lot of films nowadays, you go and tomorrow or the next day you’ve forgotten about it. For me, if you can watch a film and then, you know, a week later you’re like 'fuck' or you dream about it, that to me means we’ve achieved something," Murphy explained.

Dornan shared how he has seen audience members in theaters squirming in their chairs, experiencing the same fear as the characters did.

Bonding on set

Since Murphy and Dornan's characters spend the majority of the movie in very close proximity to each other, we were curious to learn if that on-screen chemistry led to a strong bond off-screen.
Despite Murphy jokingly claiming that "Irish people don’t like talking fondly about other Irish people," the actor couldn't deny that his friendship with Dornan was totally genuine. "I’d say it like this, you know you make a lot of films and you spend time with people and it gets quite intimate, it’s quite intense...but there are only some times when you stay friends, and this was one of those," he said.

Though Anthropoid is a serious drama, Murphy told Mashable that the set did their best to keep things as light as possible in between filming. "We did a lot of messing on set," Murphy laughed. "If you were in that space all the time you would just lose your mind, so we did keep it light…there was good fun."

Favorite movie snacks

And with a movie this intense, some comfort food is also highly recommended.

In Dornan's case, that means popcorn, along with his favorite classic confections, Milk Duds. Upon discovering his co-star had never heard of the chocolatey delights, Dornan passionately described them as an "American thing," which means he can never enjoy them when he's working in the UK, Canada or Ireland.

Cillian responded with a much more edgy snacking confession. "I’ll tell you, here’s mine," he professed excitedly, "I like popcorn, but I like to put some tabasco sauce on the popcorn, like a lot," to which Dornan adorably replied, "You can take the boy out of Cork..."

New Interview of Jamie, Sean Ellis and 'Anthropoid' Cast with The Knockturnal - 'Anthropoid' Premiere

Jamie's Interview

What was the appeal of the film? What drew you to work on this project?
The script and the stories blew me away. I didn’t know any of the mission or particular part of history. But beyond all of that, like three weeks before I got sent the script, I’d watched Metro Manila, which Sean directed, and I thought it was one of the best films I’d ever seen. And I’d be saying to my wife like, “Fuck, I’d love to work with this guy,” and then almost serendipitously three weeks later, my agent emailed me a script, and as soon as I knew it was Sean, it could’ve been about anything and I would’ve loved to do it because I’m just such a fan of Sean. So yeah, that was for the most part why I wanted to do it.

Can you tell me what you admire about Sean as a filmmaker and a writer?
His attention to detail is insane. I’ve never met or worked with anyone who is so driven and passionate about their project. He turns up every day know exactly what he wants to do. His meticulous planning of every shot, and he built like figurines of Cillian and I for all the action sequences. I mean I’ve worked with directors that don’t even have fucking storyboards. Sean took it to the level where he had figurines of us doing each action. He’d lit them in a way he wanted to light them on the day. I mean, his attention to detail is just incredible. It’s very rare, I think, of filmmakers these days. Certainly I’d never experienced that before. I was very taken by that.

New Interview of Jamie, Sean Ellis and 'Anthropoid' Cast with WWD

WWD - On Thursday night, everybody wanted a piece — or for the fans outside of AMC Loews Lincoln Square, a glimpse — of Jamie Dornan.

“Jamie’s amazing,” began Charlotte Le Bon, his costar in the Sean Ellis-directed film “Anthropoid,” which was holding its New York premiere. “He’s obviously really handsome, but he doesn’t come across as an ego person. He has no vanity to him, which is really nice, and he has a great sense of humor. He made me laugh a lot on set.”

And what about Cillian Murphy, the film’s other Irish lead? “You’re the first person asking me about Cillian. Everybody’s asking about Jamie.”

The cast’s ability to keep things light off-set is in sharp contrast to the film’s subject matter. Dornan and Murphy costar in the historical thriller as Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, two Czechoslovakian soldiers who carried out “Operation Anthropoid” during World War II, a mission to assassinate third-in-command SS officer Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. Despite the operation’s significance in the war, it’s an unfamiliar tale for many.

“The script and the story blew me away,” explained Dornan, snacking on popcorn. “It’s one of the lesser-known events within the Second World War — I didn’t know anything about the mission or this particular part of history [before filming].”

He revisited history to glean background for his character. “I think both Cillian and I had a good grip on who these guys were and why they find themselves in the position they did,” he continued. “[Gabčík and Kubiš] are true heroes, but they’re true heroes just because they’re young men. There’s nothing superhero about them, and that’s why I think the story is so relatable.”

The movie shot on-location in Prague, which added extra weight to the project. “I could never say no to this film. It’s one of the biggest stories in the world history in Czech Republic — they’re heroes,” said Czech star Anna Geislerová, who had the added weight of being involved with depicting one of her country’s pivotal historical moments. “The Czech audience, they’re very critical about everything. I didn’t feel any pressure before, but now I think they want to see how [the movie handles] our history.”

Back to Dornan. “I had a lot of fun with Jamie Dornan,” said Murphy, blue eyes blazing. “I never want to see him again in my whole life, obviously…he’s a great guy. I think naturally when you’re making a film like this where the topic is quite heavy, you have to have the [joke].”

Actress Aisling Bea Talks About Jamie and 'The Fall' Season 3

Aisling Bea has gushed about her new co-star Jamie Dornan after landing a role in series three of gritty crime series The Fall.

The Irish comedian’s stock has been soaring over the last year and she’s landed a number of juicy TV parts, most notably in the BBC’s dark serial killer drama.

And the Kildare woman revealed she was thrilled to be cast alongside the X-Files’ Gillian Anderson and Fifty Shades star Dornan.

She told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “Everyone was so lovely on it, a very warm group of people. There’s loads of lovely Irish actors in it. We filmed it all up in Belfast, which is just stunning. Everyone in Belfast has such a great sense of humour. It was actually quite a warm job for something that tackles such a dark subject matter.”

Although he plays cold, calculating serial killer Paul Spector in the show, Aisling revealed that Jamie Dornan couldn’t have been nicer on set.

She said: “He’s so sweet. He’s a big comedy fan. He’s a wonderful guy and has no airs or graces. He’s one of those big stars and there’s pictures of him around the world. But he’s just very down to earth, very humble, a big family man. He had another little baby on the way when we were filming, so his wife was quite pregnant during it. He’d rush home every Friday to make sure he got loads of time with his family. He’s really a really good egg, he’s just a good guy. He’s very funny as well, in a dry humoured way.”

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She's hugely excited to have landed a part in 'The Fall' and admits to having been nervous during the first week of shooting. "I'd done a lot of stand-up and had to jump straight into a dramatic part," she says of a role that she insists she can't talk about, although she did have to put on a Northern accent and got to film alongside '50 Shades of Grey' star Jamie Dornan for most of her scenes.

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New Pictures of Jamie in Paris Shared by 'Fifty Shades Freed' Crew

Jamie and hairstylist Danna Rutherford

dannarutherford: "Hard to believe it's been a week since we wrapped! A great guy to work with! #onlocation #mrgrey #paris🇫🇷 #fsogs"

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New Pictures of Jamie from EL James' Instagram Takeover

fiftyshadesmovie: "Jamie Dornan pretending to read. #TheHawkandtheSea #PalomaBeach #FiftyShades - @erikaljames"

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Conor MacNeill Mentions Jamie

The Siege of Jadotville similarly has a historical setting, as it depicts the real-life 1961 siege of a 150-strong Irish UN battalion under Commander Patrick Quinlan (Jamie Dornan) by 3,000 Congolese troops led by French and Belgian mercenaries working for mining companies. The film is an Irish/South African co-production, with the majority of the filming taking place in South Africa. MacNeill was quick to mention the hospitality of the locals. “They made us feel right at home. We were a small band of actors hanging out together, taking the bus to the shoot together, and back together. There was a really good bond in the group.”

MacNeill plays the radio operator “I’m the point of contact for the outside world. I’m the one that brings the rest both good and bad news, that has to tell them that they are on their own. Having us away from home instilled a bond and made it all feel more real.” As a result of his role in the film he spent a lot of time with lead Jamie Dornan. “That was great. Jamie’s a really good guy. We went from there to working together on The Fall a few months later, and it felt really natural.”

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