His character had fallen into the waves in a violent storm, reaching out desperately for help as Poseidon\u2019s rage battered Odysseus\u2019 ship. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was just gasping for my life in an office space with Christopher Nolan and his wife watching, and then I hear this: \u2018Fantastic work, Stephen. Really great work.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Murphy\u2019s manager was blown away when he told her. Feedback from Nolan was rare.<\/p>\n
By the time he got the call that he would be in the film, he was told he\u2019d be flown out to Morocco to start stunt training in eight days.<\/p>\n
Five days of training, a dinner with star Matt Damon and all of Odysseus\u2019 men later, the shoot began.<\/p>\n
Ships and tents covered the bay, and crowds of extras were dressed in armour. It looked as if they\u2019d been transported to Ancient Greece, Murphy said.<\/p>\n
There was barely a camera in sight.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until he spotted cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Nolan and other crew members that it clicked.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Okay, this is a movie.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of Odysseus’ men. Stephen Murphy, who plays Phemius, is on the far right.<\/p>\n
Murphy, 40, was drawn to storytelling from an early age, though turning it into a career seemed out of reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was there when I first watched Braveheart,\u201d he said. \u201cThen when I watched Gladiator, and I was like, \u2018That\u2019s what I want to do. I want to tell stories like that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Scottish-born Murphy moved to Whang\u0101rei from Glasgow when he was 8, and lived there until he was 23.<\/p>\n
He went to Tauraroa Area School, which put on the play Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. He didn\u2019t make the cast.<\/p>\n
Murphy credited his years working at Golden Bay Cement and eight years in Australia\u2019s mines as his acting education.<\/p>\n
He learned storytelling by observing his workmates.<\/p>\n
Stephen Murphy (left) with Matt Damon and Himesh Patel.<\/p>\n
The turning point was a conversation with his mining boss, who recommended he watch the television series Peaky Blinders.<\/p>\n
Murphy reported back after watching the crime drama, critical of the accents. His boss laid down a challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re a storyteller. You\u2019re not meant to be down the hole forever,\u201d he told Murphy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in you.\u201d <\/p>\n
Those words hit deep, and Murphy saved up and moved to Melbourne to pursue acting.<\/p>\n
One audition was for the hit historical fantasy series, Outlander.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t get the role, but the casting director suggested he move to the United States to \u201cswim with the big fish\u201d.<\/p>\n
Within six months of moving to LA in 2018, he booked his first acting job.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t always easy.<\/p>\n
A full quad rupture halted his dreams in 2022. <\/p>\n
He was told he would never do stunts or action movies again, but he refused to give up. <\/p>\n
Three years to the day of the accident, he found himself on a private plane to Morocco to begin filming The Odyssey.<\/p>\n
He was one of 10 actors hand-picked from 32,000 applicants to work alongside Damon in one of the biggest films of this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just the nicest man, just took me under his wing,\u201d Murphy said of Damon.<\/p>\n
Stephen Murphy, who spent his childhood in Whang\u0101rei, with The Odyssey actor Jon Bernthal, who plays Menelaus.<\/p>\n
Damon regularly checked in on Murphy and his injured leg.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe long haul, I need you in one piece,\u201d Damon would say.<\/p>\n
They spent a month in each filming location and had to learn how to row and sail.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese islands off the coast of Sicily, we rowed all around there for a month.\u201d <\/p>\n
In Greece, they filmed the scene where Odysseus and his men face the cyclops Polyphemus.<\/p>\n
It was there that Murphy earned his line and his character\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
Stephen Murphy on set as Phemius.<\/p>\n
Up until then, he\u2019d been just one of a group of Greek soldiers. <\/p>\n
The rest of the actors had gone outside the cave while Damon and Himesh Patel continued filming. Murphy stayed behind.<\/p>\n
Nolan approached him, checking that he knew he wasn\u2019t in the shot. He knew, but he stayed so that Eurylochus, played by Patel, and Odysseus would know they weren\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you\u2019ve got another two days acting to the wall and not on camera then?\u201d Nolan responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes sir,\u201d Murphy told him.<\/p>\n
On the third day, co-producer Andy Thompson approached Murphy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour lines,\u201d Thompson said, handing him a script.<\/p>\n
Confused, Murphy said he had no lines. He\u2019d been gearing up for another day of acting at the wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do now,\u201d Thompson told him. \u201cIt\u2019s very important. It\u2019s the through line.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018The through line?\u2019\u201d And he goes, \u2018Basically, the theme of what we should be doing as men in the film. Honouring the dead, not leaving them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen Murphy (right) in Circe’s home when she turns Odysseus’ men into pigs.<\/p>\n
Murphy\u2019s line foreshadows the chaos and Poseidon\u2019s wrath that is about to follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe honour our dead, Odysseus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Murphy was overjoyed and called his mum to tell her the news. <\/p>\n
He later learned that his name, Phemius, was the bard in the original poem.<\/p>\n
Nolan said he chose it because Phemius was a storyteller and joker. He thought it suited Murphy. <\/p>\n
The last location took Murphy home to Scotland.<\/p>\n
He found out they\u2019d be filming 30 minutes from where his grandmother lived. <\/p>\n
She\u2019d beaten cancer and, in a convenient twist, his parents had flown out to be with her. They were able to meet the crew.<\/p>\n
Full-circle moments like that have been a regular occurrence in Murphy\u2019s life since then.<\/p>\n
When he spoke to the Advocate this week, he\u2019d recently finished filming Empire City with Gerard Butler in Australia, where his acting dream began.<\/p>\n
He said he wanted his story to inspire Northlanders not to give up on their dreams. <\/p>\n
Stephen Murphy at the US premiere of The Odyssey in New York last month.<\/p>\n
He was pleased to see how much he features in the final cut of The Odyssey. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of moments there where people have come to me in the industry now and said, \u2018You might not have said much in the film, but we could always feel you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Such compliments came from the likes of Hollywood star Tom Holland, who plays Odysseus\u2019 son, Telemachus. <\/p>\n
Murphy was overcome with emotion when shooting wrapped last year. <\/p>\n
He was filled with gratitude, but aware of the crash to earth that would soon come. <\/p>\n
After saying goodbye to Nolan, he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Damon. <\/p>\n
Slipping effortlessly into the actor\u2019s familiar lilt, Murphy recounts Damon\u2019s words of reassurance. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou think this is the end? It\u2019s not the end. It\u2019s just the beginning.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brodie Stone covers crime and emergency for the Northern Advocate. She has spent most of her life in Whang\u0101rei and is passionate about delving into issues that matter to Northlanders and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His character had fallen into the waves in a violent storm, reaching out desperately for help as Poseidon\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3376,276985,103897,16426,3936,44965,156,1668,9641,70487,12597,111,139,213696,69,189496,90,18150,17218,276986,223,67085,1869,1316,8242,24886],"class_list":["post-563256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-actor","tag-auditioning","tag-casting","tag-christopher","tag-director","tag-dressed","tag-entertainment","tag-front","tag-idea","tag-joining","tag-murphy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nolans","tag-nz","tag-odyssey","tag-on","tag-stephen","tag-stood","tag-stubbies","tag-the","tag-tshirt","tag-whangrei","tag-when","tag-wrestling","tag-zoom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}