Cillian Murphy Took Inspiration From David Bowie For Oppenheimer Weight Loss

Cillian Murphy's delicate silhouette as J. Robert Oppenheimer in the magnum war opus, "Oppenheimer," had an unlikely inspiration, given that director Christopher Nolan sent him a picture of singer David Bowie. Murphy's diets have become part of Hollywood lore, with him looking emaciated because the role demanded it.

Both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" are going head to head this weekend, likely to dethrone Tom Cruise's run with his latest "Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One." And the star of Oppenheimer isn't Matt Damon or even Robert Downey Jr; it's a gaunt Cillian Murphy, whom we remember from "Peaky Blinders" and partly from "A Quiet Place."

This is his magnum opus, a movie he plays the central character, and when Nolan approached him for this role of a lifetime, Murphy was understandably excited. Given that it was a Nolan film, written as a first-person narration of the titular character, Murphy carried much weight on his shoulders. So his first prep was to shuck it off, in the most physical sense of the word.

Cillian Murphy told New York Times, "I love acting with my body, and Oppenheimer had a very distinct physicality and silhouette, which I wanted to get right. I had to lose quite a bit of weight, and we worked with the costume and tailoring; he was very slim, almost skeletal, and existed on martinis and cigarettes."

Even Emily Blunt, who plays Kitty, Oppenheimer's wife, felt ridiculous. She told Extra TV that Murphy had "such a monumental undertaking" and that "he could only eat an almond every day. He was so emaciated." Matt Damon also spoke about how Murphy never accepted a dinner date with the cast because he never ate!

He did smoke several fake cigarettes for the role, and Murphy swears his next part will be that of a non-smoker. Meanwhile, single almond or not, Murphy warns against extreme dieting because it's easy to become "competitive with yourself a little bit," which he felt "is not healthy, I don't advise it."

Here's a Nolan-style trailer.

In a recent interview with "MTV Movies," Murphy mentioned how Nolan sent him photos of David Bowie to reference how Oppenheimer should look in the movie. Said Murphy, "We worked very closely with our costume designer to design the clothes. And particularly, I wanted to get his silhouette. He was very fragile and slim, and I wanted to get that silhouette right."

It was not just the physicality of the titular character that took a page out of David Bowie's lookbook, but even the clothes, including the porkpie hat and loose, tailored outfits. The costumes were inspired by Bowie's Thin White Duke persona and the aesthetics of the musician's "Young Americans" album, released in 1975.

Murphy told MTV, "Chris sent me a couple of shots a day of Bowie, certain periods in Bowie's career, like Thin White Duke and around 'Young Americans' time. He had these massive trousers and was so emaciated but so f--king cool. So we used that, weirdly, for some of Oppenheimer's trousers."

Here's the cast of "Oppenheimer," talking more about the movie and each other!

Meanwhile, because of all the hype behind "Barbienheimer," the Greta Gerwig movie "Barbie" opened to $155 million domestically, a number usually better associated with a film with male driver leads or a famous franchise. This put it well ahead of the expected $100 million or so predicted and made for one of the biggest weekends for this year.

Meanwhile, it's not as if "Oppenheimer" slouched and managed an opening weekend of $80.5 million domestically, again surging ahead of the predicted monies. Clearly, both these movies made a killing for their first weekend, and now it's a wait-and-watch to see if the next weekend or the coming months makes "Oppenheimer" surge ahead or if "Barbie" will retain the lead.

Do the viewers want more of the atomic bomb, or do they feel the "Kenergy?"