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Posted in: Movies, Universal | Tagged: christopher nolan, oppenheimer, universal, Universal Pictures
Oppenheimer: First Person POV Script & Using Real Scientists As Extras
Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan and star Cillian Murphy talk about the script being written in first person and using real scientists as extras.
When it comes to Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan is bringing back some of the usual suspects that have been in many of his movies over the last couple of years. So when the cast began to fill out for Oppenheimer, no one was too surprised to see a few names on the list. Nolan, like any director, likes working with some people more than others. Nolan and star Cillian Murphy recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly about their next big project, and Murphy praised the script saying, "It's the best script I ever read, that's for sure." Nolan went on to describe flying to over Dublin to give Murphy the script to read and how it was a different experience for both of them because this was a script written in the first person, which isn't common.
"I flew over to Dublin to hand you the script, you read it in my hotel room, I went off to look at the Francis Bacon installation in the Hugh Lane [Gallery], and then came back," Nolan explained. "I'm actually curious if the fact that the script was written in the first person will have added to the feeling of responsibility that you were going to have taking it on."
"Yes, massively," Murphy replied. "That's the only script that I've ever read that's been in the first person. It took me a minute, maybe a bit more than a minute, to figure that out. But then it became clear that you wanted it to be completely subjective, that everything was to be seen through the character's eyes as it were, and, again, yeah, that added massively to the terror. [Laughs] But when it's Christopher Nolan, you just have that confidence. You believe 100 percent in his vision, as I have always done. So it was terribly exciting."
While this might be a film that is meant to be seen on the biggest screen and shot with IMAX cameras, Nolan described the production as "stripped down" and said that "from the technical end — we kind of jumped back to an earlier point in both of our careers, where we had no Steadicam on set, we had no playback or monitors." Since this was, as Nolan says, a "fast and furious and efficient" shoot, then everyone needed to be on their game, and Murphy praised every single actor that was on set for bringing everything to the table. Some of that might be because Oppenheimer used actual scientists as extras.
"I was thinking that it even applied to the extras," Nolan replied to Murphy, saying that everyone drew on this 'massive depth of knowledge' as he called it. "We were in the real Los Alamos, and we had a lot of real scientists as extras. We needed the crowd of extras to give reactions and improvise, and we were getting sort of impromptu, very educated speeches. It was really fun to listen to. You've been on sets where you've got a lot of extras around, and they're more or less thinking about lunch. These guys were thinking about the geopolitical implications of nuclear arms and knew a lot about it. It actually was a great reminder every day of: We have to be really on our game, we have to be faithful to the history here, and really know what we're up to."
Oppenheimer would usually feel like a surefire thing this summer, but between Barbie and Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, it might have a harder time tapping into an audience than anyone thinks. Nolan has his dedicated fans, but is that enough, and does this movie have the draw to bring in people who might only see one movie a month when there are so many other options in July? We'll have to see.
Oppenheimer: Release Date, Summary, Cast List
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is an IMAX®-shot epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. It will be released in theaters on July 21, 2023.
The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist, and botanist Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer. Oscar® winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Academy Award® nominee Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber, and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.
Oppenheimer also stars Oscar® winner Rami Malek and reunites Nolan with eight-time Oscar® nominated actor, writer, and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. The cast includes Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), Dylan Arnold (Halloween franchise), David Krumholtz (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises).
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