Actors Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy were out on the red carpet on Tuesday (August 30) for the UK premiere of their new film, “Anthropoid”.
Written and directed by Sean Ellis, the period drama is based on the true story of the World War II operation to assassinate Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich was the Reich’s third in command after Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, and he was also the leader of Nazi forces in Czechoslovakia. Nicknamed “The Butcher of Prague,” his reign of terror and brutality prompted Czech authorities in London to hatch a top-secret mission, codenamed ‘Operation Anthropoid’.
Dornan and Murphy play two soldiers from the Czech army-in-exile who are parachuted into their occupied homeland in December 1941. With limited intelligence and little equipment in a city locked down under Nazi occupation, they must find a way to kill Heydrich, the man many saw as Adolf Hitler’s natural successor.
“It’s a very relatable war movie…very real identifiable people who were thrust into a very admirable situation, I think that resonates with an audience,” said Dornan.
When asked about whether he enjoyed taking on the role of a real-life spy, Murphy replied: “I think it’s more about two men trying to deal with the fact that they have to try and kill a man – and carrying that and how to process that – that’s how it resonated with me anyway.”
Murphy added that it was “a total coincidence” that two Irishmen were cast as the film’s leads.
“It just happened to be the way it was. And we got on great so I guess being Irish helped, you know similar sense of humour, but it was total coincidence really,” he said.
Dozens of fans, mostly women, gathered to catch a glimpse of “Fifty Shades of Grey” star Dornan at the event. Dornan told Reuters he didn’t mind his heartthrob status if it encouraged more people to see his work.
“When you make movies you want, for the most part, you want as many people to see them as possible. If that means that there’s girls like that who are going to see the movie and maybe learn something about the Second World War – it’s not a history lesson, you know it’s two hours of entertainment – it’s wrong to pigeonhole and try to say, ‘It’s only for this kind of people’. If people want to see it based on my other work, that’s fine, it’s all good.”
Dornan also revealed that sequel “Fifty Shades Darker” will take “a very different story and big new characters [are] introduced and that shakes things up.”
“Anthropoid” opens in UK cinemas on September 9.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016