The ‘Oppenheimer’ Cast on Filming the Trinity Test, Immersing Themselves in Their Characters, & More

we're in a race against the Nazis I know what it [Music] 'd be hello everyone my name is Jacqueline Coley and welcome to the big ticket interview for Universal Pictures oftenheimer I am joined by the cast and filmmakers hello everyone welcome okay uh Mr Christopher Nolan sir I have to start with you because I love the Inception of this film yes I did do that because it sprung forth from your pages of tenet and I love the idea that that line sort of gave birth to this hyper-realistic tale that gets told across 11 miles of 70 millimeter film like that's just kind of crazy yeah well I've been interested in Oppenheimer for some time and we put it into it as a you know an analogy but this idea of the moment where Oppenheimer and his team couldn't entirely rule out the idea that when they let off that first device they'd start a chain reaction that would destroy the world that just seemed like the most incredible moment in time to take the audience to be in that room with them one of the things I love with it too because how incredible the story is is you take a 20-year collaborator and put him in his like a lead role with this one but how quickly in that process did you Center in on Killian as the person to betray him because he's just such a paradoxical man such a conundrum sitting here I kind of maybe get it maybe that was part of it something that you saw and you can ship with him but yeah when did you did you select him for the part you know I when I'm writing I try to be disciplined and not right with actors in mind because then you're writing something you've already seen them do and it's limited but when you finish the script then for me I was adapting the book American Prometheus the book sitting there with the real Robert Oppenheimer staring out with this incredible sort of blue-eyed stare from the cover of that book and I thought well I know who could do that and uh I've been lucky enough to work with Gillian for 20 years now yeah and uh but never in a leading role and this time I got to to make that call and say yeah this is the one you're going to take set of stage and you get to really carry the audience with you on this journey there's something to be said for your eyes Sir in this picture I'm just going to put that out there we've seen those first look images for a long time that's all we had was just a picture of your face in this costuming you see how I just got out of his light but but I will say for you I loved reading how that phone call because again you guys have worked together I mean to go from shivering Soldier to to this moment I just love that you have a relationship that can play out in this many chapters but for you what was it like like again just take us to that phone call and knowing that you're gonna get to do this I mean that was one of the great days you have a few of those in your career and that was that's been the best so far I mean this typical Chris fashion there's no like text or Preamble I might be writing something just came straight out of the blue so it was a shocker yeah but like the best type of shocker you know um I love this too because all of you maybe get that shock moment I guess you maybe text or calls all of you to get that texting no texting sorry yeah no texting excuse me I don't know why I got so digital who am I talking to yeah even an analog here but for you Mr Robert Downey Jr sir I have to say this role I I I'm just I have to say after Decades of watching you play a hero seeing you go up against Oppenheimer as Strauss it's been so incredible and I loved Chris talking about how you got to just lose yourself in it did you like losing yourself in a bit of a slippery character if I have to say yeah I love a good uh protagonist just to double up on Killian's mine was I read the script I was mind blown and then Chris said will you do it so we're getting texts and all that cuts right to the chase but there is literally that's called a director he's very direct and it's why everything like you said Matt by the time I got to set you said Downy everything happens in front of the camera you're going to love this you said to me Emily said I'm telling you this is going to be a life-changing experience of course he already knew but then he was in front of it and that was the real Joy was to show up for someone we all admire and watch him carry this ball across the yeah I do have to say what you see on screen just your performance after seeing you again in maybe digital format your face needs 70 millimeter in this performance all of your faces need 70 millimeter on the screen for what you guys are doing it's absolutely incredible and you've assembled this cast but I have to say Emily I know that you wanted to work with Christopher Nolan and re-team with Killian but peaky blinders and your love for it just had to factor in because he's got a hat he does look good he does do a hat very well but coming into this one what I really folks I think are going to find out is how incredible Kitty was and what we don't know about her because we get to explore her in a way I've seen some of the other portrayals of the Manhattan Project we see her in a way we've never seen before was that what sort of brought you into the character it was Chris's script it was an extraordinary part she's a fireball and complicated and not the archetypal sort of conformist of 50s housewife you know he's her fourth husband at 29. yeah um but I I think they were like like comets coming together and she was clearly a Monumental presence in his life but not an easy woman um [Music] I read this line in American Prometheus that Chris encouraged us to read and it said she didn't do small talks she only did Big Talk and it was so emblematic of the character really but I mean I just had the best dialogue and the best scenes and I think my scenes were Killian with very emotional and wrought and and exciting it's where you see the the intimacy of this man you see the private life and the trauma of a brain like that and it was just so exciting to get to work with kill again and we I'd loved working with him on quiet place too and I think having that trust and secret language we already had established was huge you know jumping into this world of tempestuous couple I remember Chris saying when we did the camera test we were in our Prosthetics and Chris went God I never want to have them over for a dinner oh my God I didn't want the oppenheimers but you would feel obligated to invite him you'd have to like no and you know it would get messy Auntie Perry I'm sorry I'm just going to be sitting with that for a minute uh what's so interesting is the people that were surrounded by the great man as much as he was doing what he they were integral to him doing what he did and your character I think is another one of those interesting things that are around him as another leader in the Manhattan Project but he was such an interesting Ally because he was part of that conservative Soldier movement that was going up against these liberal scientists but y'all have probably the strongest relationship in the end of this that's again talk about that balance that you had with the character and with their friendship yeah I mean to Echo what Danny was saying um Chris is very direct like when he offered me Interstellar years ago he said you know they say there are no small parts there are only small actors and I'm on the FICO yeah and he goes this is a small Park so when he came back and and he said you know the book is American Prometheus it's this great Pulitzer Prize winning book he goes I'm not calling the movie that I'm calling it Oppenheimer because it has to be entirely it is going to be through his eyes and when I read the script I'd never seen this before it was written in the first person never seen that before and it gave you as a reader the the that visceral that's subjective Oppenheimer experience so instead of going Oppenheimer across to the window it says I I walk towards the window and you're you know and it's just had this kind of immediate seeing kind of visceral punch and so you could see what he was trying to communicate to us and to his crew like this is what the movie is going to be and he said what I need are actors in support of that this entire thing is going on Killian's back and I need you guys to support that right and so that was really that's a great kind of marching orders very you know actionable for us and and easy to understand and every day I was like all right how can I help that um how can I get more but but watching the two of them because it really is a partnership at that level when you see a movie at this scale that is fearless enough to live in Quiet Moments in you know in IMAX on his face and with everything that's going on I mean the most impossible moral quandaries and you know and and live there it's about these two guys being so locked in together and and watching them build that together and then watching Chris build a movie around that performance was was the rush so in my case it was yeah you know I'm one of the spokes of the wheel and the tension between us is that is that you know the military is obviously obsessed with secrecy and compartmentalization and as you say the liberal scientists are like you know open the kimono let's share all of our our knowledge so that we can get to the answer and so there was this kind of natural tension but despite that these two guys actually really liked and respected each other even though nobody else liked Grove the fun thing to play you just didn't give a and it would be liked it was so far down on his list of objectives like if you ask him like do people like you he would probably look at you like I don't even understand the question you know what I mean because what they were doing was so consequential I mean Chris has said he's been on record saying oppen armor is the most important person to live uh in the last hundred years if not ever and this movie is about the most important things human beings did perhaps in the in you know in the history of the species and so to be part of a movie that's telling that story with the director who's at the absolute height of his abilities you know with with a chance to support that performance which to me is one of the Great Performances I've ever seen on screen was thrilling so and this is from the man who colonized Mars I was all I had no Supporting Cast potatoes just the potatoes were giving you a lot it's incredible listening to the Cavs talk about because I've seen the film and it is like that you want to discuss it and you want to have a moment with it beyond that and I think this is a film that begs you to see it on the biggest screen possible with the best sound but beyond all the visuals and sort of cinematic things I think it's the fact that afterwards you need to talk to people like last night I'm outside of Lincoln Center and I'm like calling home I'm like we need to discuss this and did you have that similar experience when you saw it like I just I want to take into folks because I know you all created this but the visual experience of seeing it I know you couldn't even grasp that on set possibly I think uh Mr Nolan Maestro is a a singular Storyteller in that all of his movies even at you know the most obvious one being the spinning top at the end of Inception it's always inviting conversation he's always presuming the audience wants to be elevated to a place where there's a dialogue that continues on and then this is kind of the natural progression you know and I think about like what was Kubrick doing before he decided to make you know pick one of his films and you just you're just glad that there is this progression but yeah for sure I mean we're excited by it and it's it's a roller coaster of just an experience cinematically but it also is that thing that I think that's why you're responding the way you are you know we want we want to be challenged by cinema at its best I can only think of the challenge that you were faced with this portrayal um I first of all I'm glad to see you here you looked so sickly on screen I wanted to give you we were all in New Mexico like eating quesadillas and he was like in his room eating an almond by the way he declined every dinner invitation for the entire film we invited him dinner every night he never came once I mean that's a commitment the only thing Chris would do by Texas his daily calorie count oh my gosh that's getting real let me let me bring it back a little a little character and knowing that this was a man that had so much written about him you have to make him still real you still have to make him someone you can live and breathe in and I think for every actor they talk about there's a moment where it switches it stops being the research and the script and it starts just being something you embody what was that moment for you was it on set was it a pre-production well the approach I always take is do as much research as you possibly can and there's so much out there about Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project is there's so much archival footage out there you can you can access and you know obviously I read the book but for me the most important resource was this script you know that's what I really worked on and I had six months from when Chris called me unexpectedly and to when we started shooting to work on it having said that I think when you get on the floor with actors like these guys and with Chris you kind of just put that aside and it all becomes kind of about the moment and the truth and the emotion between the the actors and that was just every day it was it was a gift you know I can't give you one specific point but there was many scenes in the film like with Robert and when Emily and with Matt like they were just kind of electric you could kind of feel it fizzing and at that point yeah it isn't intellectual it's kind of instinctual and emotional well the proof will be in the pudding when folks get to see it again I I don't want to say this because I was lucky enough to see it last night in Lincoln Center on like that incredible screen where like literally the seats Shook at certain points of explosions but I have to say I would feel cheated I know everyone says this but I'm like no you kind of I want everyone to have that I was sitting dead center on the very back row I want everyone to have that experience I like for you sir Mr Nolan to explain some of the deliberate things you made in filming this choosing to film it in IMAX the first film to do it completely well to while you did I think what 80 on Dunkirk and now this one is completely in that ratio there's visual effects and moments in the film that beg that and I know that you crafted it that way I would love for you to talk about some of those moments that you made specifically to really sort of envelope this format and to expand it in ways that we haven't seen before well I've used IMAX for years and it IMAX film is is the highest quality Imaging format ever devised and what that gives you is access to the audience's perceptions it takes the screen away I refer to it as sort of 3D without the glasses you know you're just looking at a crystal clear sharp image and we've used it in the past for a lot of action um we've used it for the grand Vistas and my Director of Photography and myself you know we knew we would get New Mexico that way we would get the storms we would get the desolation of where they they built Los Alamos but what we both got really excited about is how can it how can this format help give us access to oppenheim's thought process how can it help us really peer into his soul you know how what happens when you apply that ground format to intimacy to what these guys are doing you know to to Really seeing the world through his eyes and trying to pick up the different layers of of what everybody is thinking and feeling and all of the conflicts and uh paradoxical situations and unethical dilemmas that are going on and we found that the format is a powerful tool for all aspects of of Cinema really and Cinema is just about storytelling and it's more than anything about the human arm again yeah the human element is definitely I think a big part of that one again we talk about the interesting questions or folks that have seen the trailer this is going to come out before they get a chance to see the film the question that you sort of jokingly make in the trailer and that Chris talked about like this idea that could Set Fire To The World becomes a much bigger question when you actually look at the film and and as it goes to it was that originally from that script because I have to imagine as an actor like that's that's it that's you don't really did you like so it's like how how did they do that but the like I love like like downy's character he's obsessed with this conversation that these two great scientists have it's like it's about the bigness and greatness of men in this in women in the smallness of us you know what I mean like human beings are just so you know so yes to your point like it is it it it it it it's there's a reason he wrote about it in tenant there's a reason it's in our movie it's because it's it's kind of a central conundrum like how how they press the button anyway how would you do that if there was any possibility yeah you could wipe the species like how do you press the button and they were taking bets on it yeah that's the crazy thing that's also what I think though how do you approach that day you have to treat that when we talk about layers you have to give the absurdity of them taking bets the reality of what he is saying and then also the cinema of playing that out between these two characters I just want to talk about that scene between the two of you well I just also say the the the the the incredible Brilliance of Opera Oppenheimer but yet his naivete right to go to to think that this this is going to end perhaps end all wars there's a moment in the movie that I love which is when the genie is out of the bottle and Oppenheimer realizes that he has no control of it when he comes and says to me should I come to Washington and I look at him and I go why and you just realize oh my God they're done with him you know now now this thing is a reality and it exists in the world and he and he he's he has no control over it and yet in his own kind of innocence and beautiful way you know he was the only person who could have helped create it but kind of thought it might be a force for good and like what a naive way ridiculous thought in retrospect but what a you know it's it's so tragic and so kind of beautifully human at the same time playing that moment um there's so much your character goes through through the course of this his perspective on things that were closely attached to his very being he changed his mind about and and again this idea of a polyglot poet who created this weapon of mass destruction he lives in those contradictions how did you reconcile that in the performance because he's not conflicted as he's doing it he's almost stoic in his decisions but we know that he is literally battling battles within himself yeah totally well I mean we were kind of trying to play the kind of interior I suppose you know it was it was to internalize the performance a lot I think that's what we're certainly trying to do and you know certainly with all those amazing close-ups that Chris uses with the on the IMAX camera yeah but that's that they're the brilliant characters you know the ones that have the huge complexity and ambiguity and uh contradictions and I don't know we just kind of had to plot our way through it particularly when you're shooting out of order as well you know trying to figure it all out where he stood emotionally and morally at each point in the story is very very complex certainly the most complex character I've ever approached yeah you told us a few weeks ago that there was something he said which I loved about that he's a chess player and not a box I was that was yeah that was in a scene we had yeah remember that that was early on and I think I came in a bit heavy in that scene and you said to me yeah Kelly's not a he's not a boxer he's a chesper that's just an example of one of the unbelievably versions total permission as an actor by the way to just let the entire thing come to you but it just can turn a performance like completely on its own one sentence can just yeah pretty good at that yeah well that's very kind of you say but the thing about that not shooting in order and you having to figure out that puzzle for yourself yeah and you know I'm there on set trying to gauge that for the audience some of the sort of audiences yeah eyes on set um but it's really not until we're getting the edit sweet and sit there with Jen Lane who's cutting the film and then we see what all you've done and it starts to fit together and you see the work that's gone in uh because I get to take that for granted when I work with people they turn up the set they do their thing it seems simple it often seems effortless and then you get in the Etta Suite you see how it relates to something an hour away in the film and that's where you start to see the work that these guys have put in I think it's a testament to just listening to everybody sort of like geek out on what you guys did on set but also just the fact that everyone got to be a part of him and in this cast is incredible and I think it's a testament to you you have frequent collaborators I think five Oscar winners eight nominees total like this is a cast that is very stacked but the selection process is equally as hard I mean some of the smallest roles when I look at them I'm like yeah that's a perfect casting for that creepy character or that like intriguing character what is your sort of guiding force when you're when you're making these selections because again this is not these are people that are part of the annals of History I just look at somebody like how did you see that Betty safti could play yeah well Benny I mean I I call Paul Thomas Anderson he Benny had just done licorice pizza and I'm a big fan of Benny as a director and you know I call Paul and like how before I'd seen the film you know what do you think and he's like he's the best you'll you'll love him he was absolutely right and Benny you know when I met Benny it became clear that he had almost become a physicist he literally had a moment in his life where he's like it's physics or it's you know filmmaking and so this was sort of everything no he's he was fabulous but the the thing I had done at script stage is I decided it's a risk and you know I'm hoping the audience uh enjoys this I didn't make composite characters so we have a lot of people got a lot of young new faces we've got a lot of stuff going on and you're trying to cast people with a particular energy that's memorable and fits the character and I work with my casting director John pepsodera since Memento um and so he's brilliant at just finding all kinds of choices um and I get in the room with actors I try to cast in person not you know not doing it all remotely and everything and you try to sort of feel the energy of those people and you get you know somebody like you know old and Aaron Reich who comes and and together it just brings so much to the film yeah uh Emily I definitely want to talk about this because one of the few scenes where we get to see you know Robert Oppenheimer emotion with any emotion has to do with you and I love the fact that she was his ride or die there's no other way to put it like this was the person he was meant to be with but she also is the person quickest to like call him out on his BS also and I love that you got to play that like this is I don't know that yet but I think I'll find out yeah I'll find out but yeah talk about that like just how she was the only one that's I don't care if you're the father of the atomic bomb step up yeah I think particularly kind of at the you know later on in the movie and during the hearings I think his passive approach must have just infuriated her and you see it infuriate her because there's a directness and a forcefulness to the character and conviction she's got real conviction about everything from drinking to you know being hard on him and so I think that that's where you see the storm of the relationship start to kind of build but you see the loyalty and the fight that she has for him and um I think she worshiped him I think she thought he was incredible and yeah I think those scenes have impact in the film because she's maybe one of the only people who will just say what everyone else wishes they could you know um unfortunately again I feel like I could spend another 30 minutes just talking about the crafts of this film I want to spend an hour talking to your editor I don't know what you put him or her through but they have done all of the things with this one uh it's absolutely incredible but I have to talk about the visual effects the special effects and the realism that everyone knows that you're committed to I mean just how big was the bomb like I just wanted like just like this that's a hard thing to answer without giving away giving away the tricks the visual effects Supervisor was first person after Emma my producer that I showed the script to because I said to him you know I want you to take computer Graphics off the table and think long and hard in over a series of months do some experiments and figure out ways and in which we can show organized interior State his visualizing of atomic behavior of quantum physics and then carry that threat right the way through to its ultimate expression in the extreme Beauty and Terror of the Trinity test the first time that human beings saw nuclear energy released in that form and so he worked long and hard on some things that were very very small and some things that were very very big and we got out there in that desert with these guys and you know we went through our own sort of mini version of that Trinity test where you're you're all out there in the desert in the middle of the night in your bunkers very very focused on what's going to happen and making sure that it's being done safely and carefully but done on a on a suitably grand scale I've so who was on set that day Matt and so as an actor that day there's no acting needed right like I call it Nar no acting required you just show up you put on your your wardrobe and you go on out and Yeah enjoy the show it's that moment but I'd have to ask you killing because again that is probably the moment I knew about Oppenheimer before I read the book before I knew anything was just his quote and him watching that project what was that day moment like for you yeah I kind of agree with Matt I think you just have to I don't remember us talking very much on that that evening or those few nights that we were out because you're aware of what this means and what actually went down and how like the world changed completely from what happened there so again it goes back to what I was saying earlier it wasn't a kind of an intellectual approach it was more of just like an emotional approach because we all knew I think everybody when we were out there those nights in the desert kind of knew what we were portraying so you're also putting yourself in that head that headspace yeah that that the anxiety like what must have been I I I the most profound anxiety fear you know hope every everything that they had riding on this um you know it was years of their lives it was billions of dollars like just that's what Groves thinking right he's probably thinking about how much it cost but you know they're also thinking wait a minute we might end civilization yeah again the questions this film it's just a paradox and dilemmas and everything is so contradictory you asking a lot I think of the audience um in the sense like what they're going to see they're going to be asking a lot of themselves afterwards they're going to definitely have questions I'm just curious for you sir I have to Envision you have audience in your mind you've thought about maybe what they would say after they leave the cinema and start talking about it what questions do you hope they're asking because again this is just his story but it also I think allows room for the audience to take it where they want and I think that's kind of interesting about it too so is there a place that you hope they go I don't like to be too specific about these things not making a documentary or a didactic statement or sending a specific message to me the most interesting cinematic stories they involve you in the characters dilemmas they take you on that journey and then if those stories have something to them and this is one of the great dramatic stories of all time I think it leaves you with resonances interesting questions ways in which you interacts with our own lives and the way you know we live our lives and what we worry about and what we care about but no I don't want to be too specific about it I wanna it's more as Killian was saying earlier it's more of an emotional approach as an intellectual approach you have the research you have the history of the facts of the story but you want the audience to feel it and you want it to leave them with a set of Sensations and feelings I think we'll leave it there I want to thank everyone for watching I want to thank all of you and remind everyone that that Universal's Oppenheimer will be in theaters July 21st thank you

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Keywords: Christopher Nolan, Christopher Nolan interview, Cillian Murphy, Cillian Murphy interview, Emily Blunt, Emily Blunt interview, Matt Damon, Matt Damon interview, Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer interview, Oppenheimer movie, Robert Downey Jr interview, Robert Downey Jr., fandango, fandango big ticket

Id: ykioWgVoYcI

Length: 29min 36sec (1776 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 12 2023