evidence: When Cillian Murphy won the best-actor Oscar for Oppenheimer on Sunday night, it was the fulfillment of a wish made—and granted—by filmmaker Christopher Nolan. In a note on the front page of the script he’d given the Irish actor, Nolan had written: "Dearest Cillian—Finally, a chance to see you lead… Love, Chris." [...] With his sharp cheekbones and simmering blue eyes, he physically resembles J. Robert Oppenheimer, the historic physicist Nolan chose to depict in his film about the creation and deployment of the atomic bomb. He had been one of the stars considered for the same role in Manhattan, an earlier TV dramatization of the secretive Manhattan Project that birthed the weapon at the end of World War II. In Nolan’s case, Murphy said he didn’t even need to read the completed script before saying yes. "Every time Chris has called me, I’ve always said yes before I’ve read the script. So it’s just a formality," Murphy said in a Vanity Fair interview. [...] Murphy spent six months preparing for the performance, dropping 28 pounds to even more closely match Oppenheimer’s skeletal visage, and refining his voice and mannerisms. This devotion didn’t let up during the shoot, as he continued relentless preparation after hours for the next day’s work, learned Dutch for a scene in which Oppenheimer lectures in the foreign language, and starved himself to continue shedding weight for later scenes in which the character is at a physical and mental low point.