Just before he started turning in what turned out to be a Tony-winning performance in The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Tom Murphy took a few months off from the role that had occupied him in Dublin and London for two and a half years and made his movie debut in the new film, The General. John Boorman picked up the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival for the picture last May. Brendan Gleeson, who played Mel Gibson1s right-hand man in Braveheart, has the title role of Martin Cahill, a master thief in Ireland. Co-starring in this black-and-white factual thriller is Jon Voight, who received an Oscar nomination the last time that he worked with Boorman -- in Deliverance.

"The movie," says Murphy, "is about this very famous crime buff in Dublin who was assassinated by the I.R.A. last year, and it's about his great robberies in Ireland." It hasn't been his only film offer, he admits. "There've been a few people feeling me out all right, but I haven't made my mind up about anything yet."