Cillian Murphy showed off his muscular physique on Thursday as he headed to the gym ahead of filming the Peaky Blinders movie, Daily Mail reports.
According to the report by Daily Mail, the Irish actor, 47, who played the main character Tommy Shelby in the hit BBC series, showed off his toned figure underneath a grey T-shirt as he prepared to get a pump on in Dublin.
Cillian Murphy also donned casual tracksuit bottoms and trainers with a cap and sunglasses.
His new look was a drastic change from last year, when he used gruelling and ‘unhealthy’ methods to prepare for his Oscar-winning role in Oppenheimer.
Cillian Murphy went to extreme lengths to portray J. Robert Oppenheimer, reportedly eating just an almond a day in order to mirror the physicist’s ‘almost emaciated’ frame.
Yet he’s been back on his fitness kick after signing up for the Peaky Blinders movie – that seems him reprise his lead role, two years after the BBC series came to an end.
Cillian Murphy said of the project earlier this year: ‘I have always said that if Knight delivers a script that I know he can deliver, because he is such a phenomenal writer, I’ll be there.
‘If we want to watch 50-year-old Tommy Shelby, I will be there. Let’s do it.’
The spinoff will be filmed in Birmingham, England, at the Digbeth studios and on location in Digbeth and Small Heath.
The movie is expected to be released in 2025 at the earliest, but no official date has been announced.
Cillian Murphy said of his character Tommy: ‘I loved playing him. He was exhausting and so wildly different for me that each time going back was kind of a journey.
‘I’m really not sentimental about work. I feel like the next thing is the most exciting thing.
‘And I mean, it was a ten-year period in my life, so it is significant, but I always feel, like, let’s keep moving.’
The original plan was to have a seventh series of Peaky Blinders, which would have taken place during World War II.
However, the film will now serve as the conclusion to the series after six series.
Peaky Blinders launched in 2013 and garnered huge audiences both in Britain and overseas, attracting roles for silver-screen stars such as Tom Hardy and Anya Taylor-Joy.
This is not the first time Cillian has had to transform his body for an acting role.
He reportedly went to extreme lengths to achieve the slight build of the physicist J Robert Oppenheimer – for which he won the Best Actor award at the Oscars.
His co-star Emily Blunt spoke about Cillian’s drastic transformation, telling how he only survived off an ‘almond a day’ in his gruelling diet.
In an interview with Extra, Emily – who plays his on-screen wife Kitty – described the ‘monumental undertaking’ in slimming down for the role.
Cillian said: ‘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 emaciated, existed on martinis and cigarettes.
‘He had these really bright eyes and I wanted to give him this wide-eyed look, so we worked on his silhouette and expressions a lot before starting.’