How Christopher Nolan Added Extra Realism To Oppenheimer
After "Tenet" gave us the ultimate spy movie about guys being dudes, Christopher Nolan is once again diving into the world of war thrillers and international espionage (kind of) with "Oppenheimer."
"Oppenheimer," of course, is about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who spearheaded The Manhattan Project, which resulted in the creation of the first successful nuclear bomb. The real Oppenheimer ended up being responsible for shaping the world we live in, but he also ultimately regretted his work because of how it endangered the future of mankind.
Nolan has enhanced each of his films by pushing for practical effects whenever possible, and "Oppenheimer" is no exception. This is a movie that attempted to replicate nuclear detonations without CGI – so far, there's been no actual confirmation that Nolan didn't just commission a nuclear bomb for the movie. Indeed, Nolan had such a desire to make this as realistic as possible that he hired a bunch of scientists to cameo in the movie. As he told Entertainment Weekly:
"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. 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."
The Nolan approach
In addition to actual scientists as extras, Nolan also decided to top Rian Johnson's Benoit Blanc mysteries and cast every single living actor in Hollywood to populate the world of "Oppenheimer." This includes everyone from Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, to Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, Other cast members include Florence Pugh, as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie playing theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano portraying Robert Serber, and Josh Hartnett as pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.
Unsurprisingly, the caliber of the cast didn't stop them from being confused by Nolan's signature impenetrable scripts, with Cillian Murphy taking a while to figure out the script at first. Yet he is not alone, because even veterans like Leonardo DiCaprio and Guy Pearce had to just focus on their characters because the puzzle of the script was just too much to figure out at times.
How does the Nolan approach translate to a movie about a known figure whose story is easy to just read about? We'll find that out when "Oppenheimer" explodes into theaters on July 21, 2023. You can watch the most recently released trailer right here.