To embody Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy did not hesitate to give of her person, immersing herself body and soul in this demanding role.
Oppenheimer, released in cinemas on July 19, has already exceeded one million admissions in France! Internationally, the biopic of Christopher Nolan has so far collected the tidy sum of 220 million dollars.
This success, the film owes in part to the performance of its main actor, Cillian Murphy. The latter immersed himself with fervor in the role of the father of the atomic bomb, arousing the admiration of his colleagues.
“Honestly, in my entire career, I had never witnessed such sacrifice from a lead actor.“, hammered Robert Downey Jr. at the microphone of People Magazine. “He knew it was going to be a gigantic request when Christopher Nolan called him. But Cillian also had the humility to survive playing a role like this.”he added.
“We were like during the filming, ‘Hey, we have a three-day weekend. We might go for a walk in Santa Fe. What are you doing?’ “Me? I have to learn 30,000 words of Dutch. Have a good time.” That was the kind of request from Christopher Nolan”said Robert Downey Jr., showing his admiration for the involvement of Cillian Murphy.
In my entire career, I had never witnessed such sacrifice from a lead actor.
Filming lasted 57 days, putting Murphy’s nerves to the test, as the actor was in almost every shot. “Of course he didn’t want to come to dinner with us. He couldn’t. His brain was just too full. The volume of what he had to take on was so monumental.”remember Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.
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“It’s a lot of pressure. The character was complex, contradictory and so iconic. But I knew I was working with one of the greatest directors of all time. I felt confident with Chris Nolan”confided Cillian Murphy last May in The Associated Press columns.
For her part, Florence Pugh, who plays Jean Tatlock in Oppenheimer, is full of praise for her partner. “Christopher Nolan really had an incredible first role. He’s an actor I’ve been following for a while and desperately wanted to work with for ages. You’d have to be crazy to say no to a job with Cillian. This was truly one of the best experiences of my life”she said.
“Working with him was extremely impressive. Every day he comes in knowing every way to present the text, every intonation, every possible inflection to bring his character to life. It was extremely impressive to me. It’s not for nothing if he is one of the greatest today”she expressed.
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Cillian Murphy was so involved in his role that he also lost a lot of weight. “I was running with crazy energy, I crossed a threshold where I didn’t care about food or anything anymore. I was so into it, a state of hyper something. But it was good because that the character was like that. He never ate”explained the comedian at Vanity Fair.
“I love playing with my body, and Oppenheimer had a very distinct physique and figure, which I wanted to replicate. I had to lose quite a bit of weight, and we worked with the costume and the tailoring, he was very thin, almost emaciated, survived on martinis and cigarettes”added the Peaky Blinders star.
However, Murphy does not wish to communicate on a number concerning his weight loss. “As you go along you get a bit competitive with yourself which is not healthy. I don’t recommend it. I don’t want to see anything written in the press, ‘Cillian has lost so many pounds for the roleconcluded the interpreter of Oppenheimer.