- 2 days ago
Cillian Murphy and Little Simz sit down with NME's Alex Flood for an in-depth chat about their new Netflix film set in a school, 'Steve' – and the real-life teachers that inspired their heartbreaking performances. Watch out for Mark O'Leary, Murphy's long-lost guitar teacher who pops up for an unexpected cameo!
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00:00It's a calling like to take it to do it right to do it seriously go out in front of these kids
00:0535 teenagers in secondary school, right? And you do it day in day out and you get up there and you try to connect with them
00:12And then like in my parents case you come back and you do it again with your own
00:16Teenagers and like that goes on and goes on it. That is a lot of giving. These are extraordinarily complex young people
00:23Please tell me, you know, it's not all right to be out here at like breakfast time getting fully baked
00:32Snapey dick. This is the thing you can't just casually call me a dick
00:36Hi, I'm Alex from NME, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Cillian Murphy and Simbi Adjikaro a.k.a. the mighty little sims
00:43To talk about their new film Steve on Netflix. How are we doing? Good
00:48Good, not too bad. First things first Simbi because obviously we're the NME
00:53We should probably talk about your song that you wrote for the film don't leave too soon
00:57I'm interested in how you drew from the film and the story to make the song. Yeah, when I
01:03Got blessed with the opportunity to write to write music for the film. I just wanted to do justice
01:08And I just wanted to do right by the story and by the film and for me it was just like
01:13almost like a I wrote the song for Shai and for Steve as well
01:22And obviously the films like, you know, just over an hour so trying to get a fraction of
01:28That feeling into three and a half minutes is a is a task
01:32But I just wanted it to feel like a love letter to those guys in in that, you know, I'd see them
01:40Yeah, and I see and recognize their pain. You must have heard it. I'm assuming killing. Oh
01:46Such a tune. It's such a tune
01:50Yeah, we will did this story is so max wrote the script and then we were like, you know, wait, you get the script. How can we cast?
01:58So you just do this like imagine and his first thing was imagine if we get little sims to play show
02:04And I will imagine so then we send it to her and like it happened and we still actually still can't believe it to be honest with you
02:11but but then to have the song is just and
02:16It's very hard to do a song, you know to have a song that finishes a film because it's very hard to get that right tonally
02:22But to have it written by someone who's in the movie
02:25It's kind of unique, but it's also it's the way it builds for me when that when that the beat drops at the end
02:31It's just something else. Yeah, definitely
02:34In Steve you both obviously play teachers who are like I would say the most pivotal to a child sort of life as you can get as a teacher
02:42I wonder did either of you have that a teacher that put you on a path to where you are today?
02:48Yeah, as I've been doing this stabbing it's been bringing up a lot
02:51Yeah, and while you're making the film as well, I imagine as well
02:54Yeah, for sure, but there was one teacher. His name is Phil is my college teacher
03:00and
03:02He allowed me to take on that course even though. I didn't have the right grades and
03:07I'll never forget that because he just saw something in me and was like on paper
03:15You don't actually qualify
03:18But I see something you know, I'm gonna give you a chance and then yeah always be very very grateful for that because
03:27I've done a bit of research. I thought you can talk about is it miss Rosen. Miss Rosen. Yeah
03:31Yeah, that was my head of year at second A school for sure. She was
03:36Yeah, amazing and miss well and my English teacher who who just encouraged my creative writing
03:43From early and to pay them back. You shout them out on stage with gorillas. I remember
03:50You said
03:52Teachers look to me funny when I said I'd make it from wrapping still got love for Miss Rosen still got love for Miss Welton
03:57It's a nice way to shout them out, isn't it?
04:00What about you killing it was there one teacher?
04:03Yes, but I should also say that my mom and dad both are retired teachers
04:09Yeah, and my dad in fact
04:12Became like a school's inspector, you know, so he'd come into the class to inspect the teachers teaching and
04:19My grandfather was a headmaster. Oh, wow
04:22It's it's like yes the Department of Education in Ireland. Yeah, so yeah, he wasn't employed there. He just turned up
04:30No, but you know the teachers would be like terrified when they call them in our age call on the Kigger
04:36but um
04:37But then anytime I talk about him on like interviews and things there's all these people right in and go
04:42Oh, he was the best. He was so caring. He was so great to me when I was a young teacher
04:47So like you didn't know him
04:49Stop me going to that party. The thing is you don't really appreciate what your parents do for a living when you're a kid
04:56You know and the thing that I
04:58Appreciate more and more and more as I get older and have kids of my own that are now finished school is that um
05:04This it's a calling like to take it to do it right to do it seriously go out in front of these kids
05:1035 teenagers in secondary school, right and you do it day in day out and you get up there and you try to connect with them and
05:17And then like in my parents case you come back and you do it again with your own
05:21Teenagers and like that goes on and goes on it that is a lot of giving
05:26You know and I'm of course. I didn't appreciate that when I was a kid. I had a teacher in in
05:31In secondary school. It was also my English teacher who
05:35Really really unlocked like literature and theater and poetry for me and encouraged me to performance
05:41Bill walbers is now yeah great novelist like a distance allows you that perspective and
05:48allows you to acknowledge the difference it made I think yeah, I know I did a bit digging as well on your past
05:53Oh, yeah, um, I read the quite creatively important guitar teacher when you're a teenager. Does Mark O'Leary ring any bells?
06:02Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
06:04Well, I managed to have a chat with him on the phone last week
06:07Just did you yeah, I wanted to find out what you were sort of both like I couldn't get in touch with miss
06:11Rosen
06:12But I'm gonna maybe say a few things that he told me and you can tell me if they're true. It's nothing bad
06:17Don't worry
06:18Your face was just like I'll reassure you. Okay, so he said he taught you from 91 to 95
06:24Right music center in Cork. Oh, yeah, that's crazy. He would have been about 14 sort of to something like that. Yeah
06:31You were a model pupil apparently. Okay, always asked questions never got frustrated. All right, sound about right
06:37And you had this classic green 90s parka jacket with the German flag on the sleeve
06:45Oh, yeah, I did have one a few more things one of the first songs you learned was blown in the wind by Bob Dylan on guitar
06:52Can you still play that?
06:54It's a pretty easy song
06:58And he helped you form a band called Sarah days. Oh, yeah, that was yeah, that was a very early band
07:04Why were they why didn't we call that?
07:05Then I think we just like the name like the sound of it. Listen, we were 15 or something
07:10Yeah, it was my my brother my brother was in that band. Yeah
07:13Yeah, deeply he plays keyboard. Yeah, yeah, very good the last time I'm gonna embarrass you in this interview, but he actually
07:21Recorded a message and wanted me to play it to you in this interview. If that's all right. Oh, really? Yeah
07:26Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and he mentions that he actually talked about a few of the other people who were sort of
07:31Around you at the time. So if you want to
07:33Hi Cillian, I'd just like to say very proud of your accomplishments
07:39I
07:40Also would like to say that you had a great pedigree
07:43There were some great people around you when you were studying here with me
07:46We had Elaine and Paul who were going to be starring with Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp
07:52We had Alan and Paul from the Sultans
07:56We also had a great friend Rory
07:58X Top Gun, incredible guy
08:00Um, so well done and hey, maybe see you around sometime
08:05No, that's very sweet. Do you remember any of those people?
08:08I remember the last from the Sultans. Yeah, what how are they all these people that were like going on to be sort of actors and stuff in this in the same class?
08:16I don't
08:17I don't
08:19So Marlon Brando made a film in outside of Cork with Johnny Depp and then but it never got finished
08:25It like it stopped filming camera the name of it in Ballycotton and I remember I was kind of getting into like
08:33Films at the time and I should get the boss down and just stand around and see if I can see my
08:38But I didn't
08:40I didn't probably have the bus fare
08:42One of the great unmade films
08:44Well, yeah, look it up. Yeah, but yeah, so that wasn't too embarrassing. Was it? That was great. Thank you
08:50Steve, you can't do it all
08:52Okay, alright, I'm here for you
08:54Perhaps there's a limit
08:56You
08:58Don't
08:59Know me
09:00Why do you fucking give a shit?
09:05So we always ask this in interviews with anyone we interview, particularly actors
09:09What is your go-to album that you always go back to over and over again?
09:13If you could only pick one that would be it
09:15I'm gonna say Frank Ocean, Nostalgia Ultra
09:19Nostalgia Ultra
09:20I love Frank Ocean, I think he's such an amazing songwriter
09:28Yeah, his voice is incredible and yeah, he's definitely an artist that I will forever love and adore and always go back to his records
09:38It's interesting because lots of people say Channel Orange
09:40I hear it, I think just because Nostalgia Ultra feels like a mixtape
09:47And I like that he, you know, he had like classic, um, Coldplay songs and he'd do a flip on them
09:55Or, you know, these like rock bands that you'd never think you'd hear like an R&B soul singer on those kind of records
10:04But it just worked and I like when things almost shouldn't make sense but they do
10:08I like duality and that type of thing and I just think he'd done it really well
10:14Have you ever got to meet Frank Ocean?
10:17Nah, I think he's like writing films now, he's like just directed his first
10:21Oh really?
10:22Yeah
10:23Cool
10:24I think I was very young and a lot of the time sharing music was, it was, and I said I'm just such an old man
10:30But I mean we used to go to the city library and actually rent cassettes
10:34And I remember renting Abbey Road, the Beatles, because I had like my dad had the greatest hits on cassette
10:41And then I will genuinely never forget putting the cassette in the thing and hearing the
10:47Like it was, like I never heard anything like it and it was just, it's still to this, and I listened to that cassette over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
10:56Yeah
10:57And you know the second half is that whole McCartney collage thing, which is just this incredible
11:02It's a weight
11:03Virtuosity
11:04Yeah
11:05And it's like, it always felt like a kind of a, like you were travelling through something
11:10And then I ended up living near Abbey Road, it's so bizarre, it just became like, eh, who's Abbey Road?
11:15And someone here recorded at Abbey Road, so pretty cool
11:18Yeah, recorded that many times, yeah
11:21Simbi, I can't leave, The Enemy, without asking you for a music update, because obviously Lotus is out, you're on tour for the rest of the year
11:29I think mostly, in America as well, but after that
11:32Yeah
11:33Are there any projects percolating?
11:35Um, within film or music, wherever
11:39Anything you want to tell me about?
11:40I think, like I'm always writing and creating and, yeah, just kind of trying to focus on staying present at the moment
11:50I think I've spent, I've spent a lot of years living in the future
11:54I'm like, I'm gonna do that thing and I'm gonna, you know, I wanna do that next and that
11:59But right now I think I'm just in a space in my life where I'm just like, this is what I'm doing now
12:04And this is what I'm focusing on
12:06We've got a lot going on, so I think that's fine
12:07Yeah
12:08I remember when we were shooting Steve, like she was actually rehearsing for her, that Glastonbury set
12:14While we were shooting, like insane, and she would just casually come on set and like do a scene and then like head off
12:21And then did this like, storming set and then like Glastonbury set and you know, whatever
12:26It was just staggering, and maybe she did it
12:29And speaking of storming sets, I think it was last Friday, you did a surprise DJ set
12:35Oh yeah?
12:36It's not quite the same thing
12:37No, it's not
12:39Well, I don't know, did you hear about this?
12:41No, really?
12:42Where was it?
12:43In Cork City, yeah
12:44The UQRA, the festival
12:45Yes, yeah
12:46What's it called again?
12:47Sounds from a safe harbor, yeah
12:49Do you want to see a video of it?
12:51I would love
12:52We don't have time for that
12:54Look out, it's so cool, you've got the place absolutely bouncing
12:57Nice one
12:58Yeah, but thanks so much for chatting to me guys, it's been an absolute pleasure
13:01I hope it wasn't too embarrassing some of it
13:03No, no, it was lovely to see that message, yeah, thanks man
13:05Thanks man
13:18You're not alone, Chey
13:19That's the whole point
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