CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S WAR epic Dunkirk is gearing up for its worldwide release, which means that the stars are doing the late night chat show rounds in the US.
One of those stars is Cillian Murphy, who appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night.
And the interview didn’t go very well, all things considered
It started off with the host saying that Cillian’s accents in movies are so good that he didn’t even know he was Irish – which led to Colbert asking whether he’s ever been fooled by an Irish accent from an American actor:
Occasionally, yeah
There have been some successful Irish accents in the course of cinema history, others less successful…
Colbert then joked about who’s got it wrong in the past:
“Lucky Charms guy, obviously”
And from there, things got a little awkward:
“You guys get Lucky Charms over in Ireland?”
“Lucky Charms don’t exist in Ireland”
Colbert had a theory as to why not:
“The leprechauns hide them from you”
Cillian, laughing awkwardly:
“Yeah, yeah”
Asked whether we had the “Trix Rabbit”, Cillian was like:
“Never heard of that”
Going well so far.
A few seconds later, they moved on to Ireland itself:
“Did you have a traditional Catholic school education as a boy?”
“Yep. No choice”
This interview was grinding to a halt before our very eyes.
A bit more chat about Cillian’s early days in a band and his love of theatre brought Colbert on to his next question:
“Growing up, did you sing traditional Irish tunes and stuff like that? Like, ballads?”
“… not really…”
“You see that’s a stereotype over here – that you’re all down at the pub singing at night”
“Yeah, we’re down the pub. Not necessarily singing, just drinking”
They finally moved off the Irish stereotypes and started talking about the movie itself – and the interview picked up from there as Colbert battled on.
But the first section will hardly go down in the pantheon of great late night TV interviews
Cillian’s total input into the first few minutes of that interview can be summarised as:
Yep.
Not really.
Never heard of that.
Colbert probably won’t be asking about Lucky Charms or mentioning leprechaun next time an Irish star is on his couch, you’d imagine.
