10 March 2024 , 21:00
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Cillian Murphy went to extreme lengths for his stellar performance in Oppenheimer - and it clearly paid off.
While the 47-year-old Irish actor has maintained his youthful looks throughout his time on-screen, appearing somewhat ageless, the star underwent a drastic transformation for the hit Christopher Nolan-directed film, where he lost a considerable amount of weight.
His commitment to the role has seen him win rave reviews for his acting, with his talent recognised in tonight's Academy Awards, where he is nominated for Best Actor. Best known for his character Tommy Shelby in BBC's Peaky Blinders, Cillian looked very different as he transformed into the "emaciated" J Robert Oppenheimer last summer.
The blockbuster, released in July 2023, follows the scientist as he developed the first atomic bomb as part of the secret Manhattan Project. Cillian lost a lot of weight to look like the renowned physicist, using techniques such as eating "an almond a day".
Cillian Murphy is well-known for his role in Peaky Blinders (Getty Images)
He slimmed down to play J Robert Oppenheimer (David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock)The actor said it took more than five months to prepare himself for the role, before admitting he had wanted to lose weight to give the character a "wide-eyed look" to show how he "never ate".
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"I love acting with my body, and Oppenheimer had a very distinct physicality and silhouette, which I wanted to get right," he said in an interview. "I had to lose quite a bit of weight, and we worked with the costume and tailoring; he was very slim, almost emaciated, existed on martinis and cigarettes."
Cillian said he worked with professionals to perfect Oppenheimer's "silhouette and expressions" right before filming. Speaking to the New York Times, he said he tested himself on how little he could eat before advising against the extreme diet.
The actor did not reveal exactly how much weight he lost for the film, but did say the hectic schedule made him stop worrying about eating. He added how he was instead "running on crazy energy".
The actor experimented with a extreme diet (Melinda Sue Gordon)Actress Emily Blunt has also spoke out about Cillian's dramatic transformation, explaining what he ate as part of his gruelling diet. The 40-year-old, who plays Cillian's on-screen wife in Oppenheimer, said it was a "monumental undertaking" to lose the weight.
"He had such a monumental undertaking. And he could only eat, like, an almond every day. He was so emaciated," she said during an interview with Extra. Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan revealed a strange factor in the filming of his war drama - that everyone's schedule needed to revolve around Murphy's hair.
The Oscar award-winning director said that he is "very allergic to wigs" in his movies. The Interstellar director revealed in an interview with The New York Times that he purposefully scheduled the filming of different scenes around his haircut so he never needed to wear a wig.
He said: "I did insist on scheduling it around Cillian's haircut. [Laughs] Because I'm very allergic to wigs in movies. I really wanted the film to not have any obvious artifice when it came to the way characters presented themselves."