Wow! When I saw these pictures today I thought holy cow – he doesn’t even look the same! Apparently I’m not the only one who noticed…

Actor Gerard Butler, 41, who was famously muscled when he appeared in Zack Snyder’s “300,” showed off a new and very slim figure on Aug. 4 at a Hollywood Foreign Press luncheon in Beverly Hills.

Butler is no stranger to a changing body, however. After he finished filming “300″ and gave up the intense workout regimen that went with it, he put a bit of weight back on. Just as soon as that happened, though, he got himself back to the gym and paid careful attention to eating healthily.

“My diet is still never quite as scheduled as I wish it were, but now I try to eat vegetables and chicken instead of burgers and fries like I used to,” he said to Men’s Health at the time.

And perhaps this newest transformation is also for a role. Butler’s next film will be “Machine Gun Preacher,” and he described his character, Sam Childers, to USA Today as “a drug addict and a biker-turned-businessman, missionary and soldier.”

If there was ever a character that chameleon Butler would change his shape for, it might be Childers. After all, he told the paper, “You don’t get roles like this very often.”

Photos (Fame): Gerard Butler arrives for a benefit match for ex-Celtic football player John Kennedy in Glasgow, UK.