Having shed pounds he didn't have to begin with for his role as a starving sailor in adventure epic In the Heart of the Sea, Cork actor Cillian Murphy was refreshingly blunt when asked which of his co-stars he would eat if he found himself shipwrecked.
"Listen, I'm not fussy, any of them," he told reporters at the film's European premiere in London on Wednesday night. "I'd fecking eat myself! Anyone who's closest!"
Murphy and fellow Irishmen Brendan Gleeson and Sam Keeley join Chris Hemsworth, Ben Whishaw and Tom Holland in the Ron Howard-directed film, which tells the true story of the Essex, a ship which was attacked by a whale and became the inspiration for Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick.
The cast had to drop their calorific intake to 500 to portray their characters in the aftermath of the shipwreck.
"These people actually lived through this and we were complaining like moany actors saying, 'Oh, I'm so hungry' but these guys had to do it for real so it does bring it home," said Murphy.
When asked why he had signed up for such a punishing project, Murphy replied: "Ron Howard was sort of the primary appeal, I guess. I loved the script - it reminded me of an old-fashioned movie that I'd watch with my dad on a Sunday afternoon. It reminded me of watching Mutiny on the Bounty for the first time; it was a tremendous piece of writing. And the fact that it was based on real events made it very appealing as well."
In the Heart of the Sea opens in cinemas on December 26.
