Jamie Dornan, Cillian Murphy discuss making their World War II thriller

Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy sat down with Mashable to chat about acting, Irish affection and their favorite movie-watching treats.

The two dapper, blue-eyed Irish actors were eager to discuss their complex characters, Josef Gabčík (Murphy) and Jan Kubiš (Dornan) from Sean Ellis' upcoming movie, Anthropoid -- based on an extraordinary true story which took place in 1940s Prague.

The Fifty Shades of Grey and Peaky Blinders stars were pushed to new acting heights upon assuming the roles of Josef and Jan, two Czech soldiers sent to carry out "Operation Anthropoid," a little-known historical mission which ordered the assassination of SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler's third in command.

Though both actors were initially unfamiliar with the story, they found themselves utterly captivated by the script.

"I have this thing where if you read a script in totality without getting up to cut the grass or make a cup of tea, it’s a good sign," Murphy said. "It was very exciting."

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Since Anthropoid is based on World War II events, one of the amazing things about shooting the film was that some of the original landmarks still existed, they said. Dornan said shooting on location in Prague was "hugely beneficial," and the sentimental nature of each location -- a church where a battle took place in particular -- helped the actors.

"To be able to visit the church, I mean it was so harrowing being there and seeing the bullet holes in the walls and cracks in the walls where the grenades had gone off, and then Sean built this to-scale set version of the church...they were genuinely identical," he said.

Knowing the film is based off of true events further inspired Dornan and Murphy. "A lot of films nowadays, you go and tomorrow or the next day you’ve forgotten about it. For me, if you can watch a film and then, you know, a week later you’re like 'fuck' or you dream about it, that to me means we’ve achieved something," Murphy explained.

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Dornan shared how he has seen audience members in theaters squirming in their chairs, experiencing the same fear as the characters did.

Bonding on set

Since Murphy and Dornan's characters spend the majority of the movie in very close proximity to each other, we were curious to learn if that on-screen chemistry led to a strong bond off-screen.

Despite Murphy jokingly claiming that "Irish people don’t like talking fondly about other Irish people," the actor couldn't deny that his friendship with Dornan was totally genuine. "I’d say it like this, you know you make a lot of films and you spend time with people and it gets quite intimate, it’s quite intense...but there are only some times when you stay friends, and this was one of those," he said.

Though Anthropoid is a serious drama, Murphy told Mashable that the set did their best to keep things as light as possible in between filming. "We did a lot of messing on set," Murphy laughed. "If you were in that space all the time you would just lose your mind, so we did keep it light…there was good fun."

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Favorite movie snacks

And with a movie this intense, some comfort food is also highly recommended.

In Dornan's case, that means popcorn, along with his favorite classic confections, Milk Duds. Upon discovering his co-star had never heard of the chocolatey delights, Dornan passionately described them as an "American thing," which means he can never enjoy them when he's working in the UK, Canada or Ireland.

Cillian responded with a much more edgy snacking confession. "I’ll tell you, here’s mine," he professed excitedly, "I like popcorn, but I like to put some tabasco sauce on the popcorn, like a lot," to which Dornan adorably replied, "You can take the boy out of Cork..."

Anthropoid arrives in theaters on Friday, Aug. 12.