Army Of The Dead Star Matthias Schweighofer Is The Latest To Board Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer
"Army of the Dead" star Matthias Schweighöfer has joined the giant cast of Christopher Nolan's latest film "Oppenheimer," according to Deadline. Schweighöfer is the latest in a long line of actors that include Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Robert Downey Jr., Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, Josh Peck, and Cillian Murphy.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin, the film has Murphy playing the title role of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist whose research led the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb. Blunt will play Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, Damon will play Manhattan Project director Leslie Groves Jr., with Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, the founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Peck will play Kenneth Bainbridge, a scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project.
The timing of this is unsettling
We don't know what role Schweighöfer will be playing in "Oppenheimer," which is currently in production, but it appears that the film will have just about every single historical figure in it, as well as every actor in Hollywood. Schweighöfer got his American break in Zack Snyder's "Army of the Dead" as the safecracker Dieter. He was then in a spinoff called "Army of Thieves," which he also directed. He's also set to appear opposite Gal Gadot in "Heart of Stone."
I'm sure this will be a compelling story — how could it not be? Oppenheimer was famously upset that his work led to such death and destruction, as anyone with a human heart would be. There is no way Nolan could have known that we'd all have nuclear war on our minds again right now, and I'll absolutely admit that I find the timing of this film's production a bit chilling. As a kid who grew up in the 1980s, this was a threat we lived with every day, and I never thought I'd see it again.
Maybe this will be past by the time this film comes out. I fervently hope so. I find the whole story fascinating, of course, but it's hard to look at this point in history with everything that's going on. All I can think of is Oppenheimer famously recalling the quote, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds," from the Bhagavad Gita, just as they dropped the bomb. Maybe this will remind us of the cost of war.
"Oppenheimer" will be released on July 21, 2023, which is two weeks before the anniversary of the bomb drop on Hiroshima