In the 1970s, a foundling lad, Patrick "Kitten" Braden, comes of age by leaving his Irish town for London, in part to look for his mother and in part because his trans-gender nature is beyond the town's understanding.
Director: Neil Jordan
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Stephen Rea and Liam Neeson
Time Out New York: Glammed up, purring seductively and dressed in a variety of fashions from "black leather terrorist" to "Indian squaw," Cillian (pronounced "KILL-ee-in") Murphy makes for a most appealing cross-dresser—a type of person, he admits, he hadn't known much about. "With most characters you have a reference point, but I had none here whatsoever." To prepare for the role, he sought out a transvestite who agreed to dress him up and take him to clubs, where he gained valuable insight into his character's psyche.
"What I noticed about all these transvestites I went out with is that they're so quick and witty because they spend their whole life having insults thrown at them," says Murphy, who lives in London with his wife, Yvonne, and newborn son, Malachy. "They can be as bitchy as fuck, but it's a total defense mechanism. Kitten has that too, because the character has been hurt so much and has built up this shell." More specifically, he survives various traumas—starting with being left at a church door by his mother, and moving through repeated beatings, an attempted rape and further instances of abandonment—with a childlike idealism that never caves in to encroaching despair.
In Breakfast, the costumes and the characters who wear them reflect a libertine subculture from decades past. "Because of the androgynous vibe of Bowie, Jagger and [T. Rex glam rocker] Marc Bolan, everyone was fucking with their sexuality a bit, so you could have total license," Murphy says. "It was probably the coolest era for dressing.Kate
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