Cillian Murphy has been in the news recently for his extreme diet on the set of "Oppenheimer" — his costar Matt Damon told Entertainment Tonight: "He was losing so much weight for the part that he just didn't eat dinner, ever."
Emily Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer's wife in the film, said Murphy was eating "one almond most nights or a little slice of apple."
But this isn't the first time Murphy has changed his diet for a role. He told Mr Porter in 2017 that he was a vegetarian for 15 years before reintroducing meat to his diet for his role as Thomas "Tommy" Shelby, a gangster politician, in "Peaky Blinders."
"I was vegetarian for about 15 years. But it was never a moral decision. It was more that I was worried about getting mad cow disease," he said, referencing a neurodegenerative disease that emerged in British cattle in the 1980s and infected people through diseased meat.
He added: "For the first series of 'Peaky Blinders', they were anxious that I shouldn't look like a skinny Irish fella, and my trainer recommended meat." He went on to star in the hit show for six seasons from 2013 to 2022.
Murphy said his first taste of meat was a venison steak he got at a restaurant. "When the waiter asked if I'd like the fish or the venison, I hesitated and he said, 'Have the venison.' He was right. It was extraordinary," he said.
He's not the only celebrity who has given up being vegetarian, or even vegan — but he didn't have to start eating meat to bulk up.
You don't need to eat meat in order to put on more muscle
Torre Washington, a vegan bodybuilder, told Insider in 2020 that he had no problem bulking up since becoming a vegan in 1998. He said his go-tos for protein included oatmeal, tofu, pea protein, lentils, and rice and beans. He also said he had "lots of produce such as Japanese sweet potato, fresh greens, and fruit smoothies."
Insider also studied the diets of other vegan professional athletes in 2019 to see where they got their protein from and reported that there were plenty of options for anyone following a vegan diet who wanted to gain muscle.
The healthiest thing to do is listen to your body, get advice from experts, and don't stick to eating one almond a day for dinner.
