Small Things Like These

Small Things Like These: The Tiny Irish Drama With Shockingly Wholesome Behind-the-Scenes Tea

A movie about institutional abuse and collective guilt should be surrounded by controversy, feuds and outrage. Instead, Small Things Like These turned out to be the rare prestige project where the mess is all on screen and the off-screen story is almost suspiciously… healthy. Still, we dug up the best bits of real-world intrigue for you.

Casting Witchcraft & “I Dreamed of Emily Watson”

• Emily Watson didn’t just audition her way into the role of terrifying Mother Superior Sister Mary — Cillian Murphy literally dreamed her into the part. Watson says the team was struggling to cast the role when Murphy told them he’d had a dream it should be her, and then she got the call and the offer on the spot . That’s not just casting, that’s mystical fan-casting by your own star.
• Watson also went full chaos agent with a spicy opinion: she claims Murphy is even better in Small Things Like These than in Oppenheimer, the performance that actually won him the Oscar ^[2]. Bold words when you are talking about the face of Barbenheimer.

Cillian’s One Big Demand: “Make It Irish or Don’t Make It”

• Murphy reportedly had one major non-negotiable: the cast had to be all Irish ^[2]. For a story about Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, he pushed hard for authenticity instead of sprinkling in random famous Brits or Americans for box office.
• Emily Watson recalls being told that “Cillian wanted to have all Irish actors” and that she was basically his dream pick — literally — to complete that vision ^[2]. When your lead actor is also a producer, the “dream” suddenly becomes a production mandate.

The Wife, The Book, The Birth of a Passion Project

• Forget some mysterious Hollywood exec sliding a script across a table — this one starts at home. Murphy has said that Claire Keegan’s novella Small Things Like These came into his life via his wife, who recommended the book to him . He read it, got obsessed, and the project snowballed from there.
• That homegrown enthusiasm turned into Murphy co-producing the film through his own company, Big Things Films, and shepherding it as what director Tim Mielants flat-out calls “Cillian’s baby” ^[1]. Not exactly cheating scandals, but definitely “married guy turns his wife’s book rec into a Berlin-opening film” energy.

Location Drama: No Fake Towns Allowed

• Murphy also insisted they shoot in New Ross, County Wexford — the real town the story is set in — rather than hiding on a soundstage or a prettier stand-in ^[1]. Director Tim Mielants confirms that Murphy’s insistence on the real place shaped the whole production.
• The team used actual local streets and empty houses in a town hit by post-1980s unemployment, meaning they could film without massive shutdowns or fake backlots ^[1]. The vibe: gritty authenticity over movie magic. Very “method,” but for locations.

The Secret Playlist Controlling Your Feelings

• Behind the film’s quietly haunting tone lurks something deliciously specific: Cillian Murphy’s personal playlist. Mielants reveals that Murphy gave the team a substantial set of musical references that heavily influenced the sound design and the eventual choice to use sparse, electronic textures instead of traditional swelling strings ^[1].
• The sound mix took longer than the edit, with obsessive attention to tiny details like clock ticks and geese — all designed to mirror Bill Furlong’s interior world ^[1]. Not exactly scandalous, but it is delightfully unhinged in a perfectionist way.

Deleted & Reshuffled: The Scenes You Didn’t See

• While no massive, leak-worthy subplot got chopped, there were some notable structural surgery moments. Mielants says:
• A scene where a girl is brought to the convent was moved earlier in the film to improve pacing and tension.
• One or two scenes were cut because they “over-explained” the story, softening the film’s ambiguity — especially around the convent and Sister Mary ^[1].
• The convent sequence with Emily Watson was reportedly the hardest section to cut and shape, because the building itself is treated like a metaphor for Bill’s internal conflict ^[1]. So yes, there are “lost” moments of Emily Watson being terrifying that never made it to your screen.

The Non-Scandal Scandal: A Serious Film That Refuses to Be Messy

So what about feuds, lawsuits, wild ego clashes at Berlin? Every credible report paints the same annoyingly wholesome picture: Murphy, Mielants and producers like Matt Damon treating the film as a solemn passion project about Ireland’s “collective trauma,” not a launchpad for tabloid chaos . The nuns are evil, the town is complicit, but the cast and crew? Boringly respectful, thoughtful, and drama-free.

In a landscape where prestige projects often come with explosive exposés, Small Things Like These might be the rare film where all the real ugliness is intentionally confined to the story — and the juiciest behind-the-scenes twist is that a serious Irish drama was literally cast by a dream.