The 'Oppenheimer' Cast Reveals How Christopher Nolan Gave Them Their Role | Around the Table

couple years later I went to buy the box set of peaky blinders and on the back it said Killian Dunkirk Murphy hello I'm Christopher Nolan the director of Oppenheimer here with the cast of the film and this is ews around the table [Music] I first heard about Oppenheimer when I was a kid um we were talking yesterday about that sting song Russians yeah you know that refers to oppenheimer's deadly toys I was growing up in the UK at a time when people were very concerned about nuclear armaments you know was protests agreement all of that campaign for nuclear disarmament and I think when I was 12 or 13 I think myself and all my friends were absolutely convinced that we were going to experience a nuclear war at some point in our lives and then over time that fear recedes and and Oppenheimer stuck with me as a figure and I learned more about him over the years including learning this information that you know he along with the key scientists the Manhattan Project they couldn't completely eliminate the possibility of starting a chain reaction that would destroy the world and for me that that was kind of the hook it's it's such a dramatic moment I referred to it my last film tenor I'm just very interested in in taking the audience into that room and being there and kind of living in that moment of what what would that have been like to to push that button knowing there was any possibility we imagine a future and our imaginings horrifiers they won't fear it until they understand it [Music] and they won't understand it until they've used it did you guys get the three dozen yellow roses two days in a row you know mine was a slower courtship process because he knew for sure I was going to say yes no matter what I went over to his house I read it I don't want to complain but it's on red paper printed in Black which is kind of difficult and a bit unnerving as well yeah I guess there's something about it that makes it that you forget it as soon as you read it I don't know what those colors are it's kind of like being hypnotized this is how you this is how you get what you want Chris is the way of operating is that he just calls you out of the blue I think you enjoy that um certainly for me it was it just came completely out of the blue and Emma called me and then put me on to Chris and he said he was making a movie about Oppenheimer and he said I'd like I'd like you to play Oppenheimer and I had to sit down and it was kind of overwhelming which is a fun way to do it but it means that in the future it's very difficult for me to call you to go out to dinner or something this this is uh gonna sound made up but it's actually true I had not to get too personal but had negotiated uh extensively with my wife uh that I was taking time off and I actually was had enough foresight I had been an Interstellar and then Chris put me on ice for a couple movies so I wasn't in the rotation but I actually negotiated in couples therapy this is a true story The One caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called and this is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything because he never tells you like Killians it just calls you out of the blue it was a moment in my household but uh so even modern psychology has a caveat for Chris you heard it here first I didn't know the process right so I didn't know if you were meeting sort of countless other people so so we talked for for an hour or so and then he's just very casual and he goes you know it's a part of um his wife and you know would you like to take a look and you're like am I is this an offer it's like so then I went into the living room read the script it was just so heart racing it was so so awesome it's that thing you read the script it's written in the first person you're transported and it's a journey to read it and then at the end of that the guy who wrote the script you just read is asking you if you want to do it I actually had a little bit I I was so blown away by the script um again Robert says it's in the first person which I'd never seen before so rather than say Oppenheimer crosses the room it says I walk across the room in in the present tense so it has that it it it it has a visceral effect on you and you pulls you right in and which is the point he's trying to tell his readers AKA it was us and his crew this is the feeling of the movie it's got to go through the subjective lens of this character and that's what it entirely rests on that and I was so kind of floored by how good it was um that the only thing I said he said what'd you think and I said I have no notes so snobby which to me is it's the highest compliment you can pay and Chris was so effective thing to say when Emily read it and M was gushing about it and she was very articulate Kristen it's better than momentum I have no notes I I don't I don't know what to say to you I can't believe this is amazing which is you know how I felt of watching the film as well we're in a race against the Nazis I know what it means if the Nazis have a bomb I have a 12-month Head Start 18. how could you possibly know that we've got one hope all America's industrial might and scientific innovation connected here secret Laboratory keep everyone there until it's done let's go recruit some scientists build a town build it fast only scientists ring their families will never get the best why would we go to the middle of nowhere for who knows how long why why because this is the most important thing to ever happen in the history of the world you're the great improviser but this you can't do in your head are we saying there's a chance that when we push that button we destroy the world chances are near zero near zero what do you want for Theory alone zero would be nice I mean we always knew that the Trinity test would have to be a showstopper it's the fulcrum that the whole story turns on and I when I finished the script one of the first people I showed the script to was my visual effects supervisor because I wanted to take CG off the table and see if you know he could come up with real world methodologies for producing the effect of you know first atomic blast but even more than that I wanted to see how we were going to try and look into optimum's mind and see his thought process of you know as I put sort of looking into dull matter and seeing energy there and seeing the potential of the strong force there to be to be Unleashed on the world and and sort of draw that thread with symbolic imagery and visualizations of the quantum world and everything so Andrew Jackson I've worked with for several films um he won an Oscar for tennis I worked with him for years and he understands both both the computer world but you also understand the analog world is wonderful with that and so he spent months and months and months doing all these experiments and figuring out all these methods some very very small and microscopic some of them absolutely colossal and then the process of going out to the desert you know with Ruth De Young Building the bunkers as they would have been so that we could shoot in the middle of the night in the desert in the real places and get these guys there to really experience some measure of what that tension would have been like that crazy night instead of building up and the weeks before building up worrying about the weather we're very fortunate the weather did all the things we needed to do it got crazy crazy On Cue it was really hypnotizing it was really wonderful uh I you know I I'm rumored to be lucky with whether I I think we make our own luck though because we're all we always shoot no matter what the weather yeah we don't stop we don't wait you know I mean on Interstellar we they kicked us off the glacier finally are we shot in the car park you know on the shot which used said wouldn't be in the film exactly it's in the movie you were right you were right but that's the thing is is you know we're always prepared to try and use what nature gives us give us a real texture and in the case of the New Mexico desert it it just paid such dividends I mean the weather that came in you know as you guys are doing the scene by the wooden wall with the initial test detonation and we had to suddenly rap because lightning came early but the clouds that came over I mean all of it just informs the whole you know the whole drama of the piece and the build up to Trinity is the key it's really all about the tension leading up to it and what the process that they went through and I was very blessed that that the designer Ruth De Young and Scott Fisher the visual effects supervisor you know when we were trying to make our budget work and all that and sort of like what do you need to see of the gadget itself and I was like well we only see it in these shots and those shots and they ignored that completely from me and they built the entire thing in exacting detail so that we were then free to shoot the entire process you know the shrink wrapping on it as it comes up in the truck that gets cut off and the way that the the different modules are inserted and wired up and we were able to build the tension up to the detonation by showing that process that they went through and I think it's so important and that's what you get I mean you know obviously with wonderful actors coming on and bringing uh you know new takes new thoughts new research to everything particularly dealing with with real people but I had that from every Department I had that from um you know from Ruth from hoyta the Director of Photography everybody coming with ideas knowledge about how this could work better and that that sequence is built on on those building blocks this is a peculiar way Chris works you don't see a frame of the film while you're shooting there's no video Village there's no monitors there's no playback which is weirdly liberating you know you're never reflecting you're just moving forwards all all the time so I hadn't seen a frame of a film except for that little teaser that you guys put out and then we and then I saw the movie how do I kind of phrase this properly uh it was absolutely staggering I found it absolutely staggering and it was I was like it was like I was kind of uh emotionally winded you know I mean it's it's it's not great looking at yourself but you can get over that when the film is as brilliantly constructed and made as this as this film is and and I remember we just talked and talked for hours after after and it seems that that everyone who's watching the film it kind of provokes that very very intense debate among people that have have seen it because the themes that it's interrogating are just the biggest themes of of of all you know and it's and it's and it's as Matt said like it's so visceral and it kind of grabs you by the throat and just you just you're just in it for the whole run yeah I was a little over overwhelmed uh still recovering there's English modesty and then there's Irish Killian it's been really difficult to try to get through to you what an amazing thing you accomplished and I know it's important for us to kind of separate from that because that's not what matters but um well done brother thanks man we all did it we did no don't don't we did but no but from the from the outset the very first thing Chris said to me when he talked to me about it was you know the book that it's based on is an amazing book it's won the Pulitzer Prize it's called American Prometheus and Chris said I'm not calling the movie that I'm calling it Oppenheimer because that's what this is and this thing rides on that character on him on that performance and I need actors in support of that that's the the mission and that those were kind of our marching orders and so watching the two of them really because I do think of it as a partnership when you're putting something of this scale on the back of one performance the director and actor have to be in complete sync and have to it has to be a partnership Chris has to put the camera in the right place and Killian's gotta you know what I mean it's like it they both have to be working in concert and that's that was what was really fun to watch and it was great to parachute in and watch that as Robert says this kind of holy monastic kind of mission that these two were on together and to and to and to Bear witness to it because it really is one of the great screen performances I think of all time yes well you lost a you took me aside and said you realize what this guy's doing every day is killing for you but with good humor and do you understand how exhausting that is how difficult it is and you must take that for granted and I thought about that and I was like no he loves it thanks for convening a short notice I can't believe it oh here we are this is Tyler test the Russians have a bomb we're supposed to be years ahead of them but what were you guys doing in Los Alamos [Music] and how many people were in these uh too many compartmentalization was supposed to be the program we were in a race against the Nazis Soviets not unless we started Robert they just fired a starting gun [Music] the nature of the Christ they detonated data indicates it may have been a plutonium implosion device like the one you built at Los Alamos yeah there's a difference between organized focused and controlled and I think all of us can say we've worked with the director or 17 in the past that may confuse those and it's about control and I never saw a mark on the floor I was never told what to do or not do I was more than occasionally asked to do nothing which is a really interesting bit of feedback because I think there's still some part of me that wants to please the director by doing something and I think also you knew because of how rich the format is how much of the work was going to be done so it really was a trust exercise in letting the story the text and I mean you know all of us are blessed that we had scenes with someone who was in you guys were in a Zone together given the history you had that was so fascinating as to this holy monastic grind you guys were in but you were kind throughout so you go like I have nothing to complain about here this is really really weird there was as little makeup as required I've just gotten older there was a lot of stipple stretch and stiff yeah a lot of that a lot of that I mean my wife said great now I see what I'm getting in 15 years I knew Killian from quiet place too so of course I called him and I said like what's it like tell me and he just said you're going to just love it you're going to love it it's so focused there's no chaos it's very giving it's collaborative and how amazing he was with actors and I think that is the great beauty of what Chris does is that there are directors who are led by the visuals or those directors who are pretty good with actors but you just never find that where someone is just sort of as mirroredly brilliant at both so I was excited about the focus of it I think I was excited about the screws getting tightened on everybody and what that atmosphere will feel like on a film set it's also the other thing he gives you is that you feel safe and I think usually you're on a film set where you might not like the script that much or you just kind of don't really trust that scene or that note or that thing and there's none of that all of that just gets kind of washed away and it gives everyone Wings on their heels you know it just makes people perform at a level that we're trying to kind of match what Chris does and yeah the screws tightening that's the feeling I loved so much every day with Killian I would start with preface it by saying that I was just marveling at what he was doing and and not doing and and all of it and then and then I I was very genuinely surprised with uh Jason Clark who plays uh Roger Robb the first time I sat in that room and was cross-examined by him and he he just started lethal is the perfect word he's fantastic and intimidating and intimidating and it was just it was great and I looked at him and I went okay this is you know and I completely out I'm I'm a general I wasn't worried about him at all but but I looked at him and went this this is you know and that was the thing is that every actor goes there very prepared very I think excited probably a little nervous to be working with Chris and and um and and you feel it when you walk on the set you feel through throughout every department and um you know it's like this is the place and you're at it yeah um and that's really exciting this is a matter of life and death but I can perform this miracle World War II would be over our boys would come home that's happening isn't it world but remember this day I mean I had so much with Killian who's so transporting to be in a scene with and just pulls you right inside of it you know whatever the scene is he can take a slap I'll tell you that yeah I mean I really didn't want to hit him you know when Chris was like hit him he's he'll be fine and I could see this his rather famous cheekbone just sort of start to grow like even more on one side that scene I really enjoyed um where it's a really difficult scene for Killian to play you know where he's literally sort of jibbering with incoherence and he's having an episode and it was just so raw and emotional and it was one of those days where sort of I think we were losing the light and it was like but Chris doesn't kind of let you feel the chaos but I think we knew you know that we had to get it and it was just a very heated exciting scene and to see this great man this powerful man so delicate so vulnerable it's just the full spectrum of what Killian can do you know and can I just say like when we're in that scene in particular I think I don't know if I'd been able to get to that place if you know if it wasn't for working with Emily because you need that level of trust for a scene like that you know and I think the fact that we know each other and she's such a like phenomenal actor that we were able to to go there you know and I think the trust you know with Chris and trust with Emily and in terms of for me like every day I was working with the best actors in the world you know Ever every single day and you know you look at the call sheet it would be like Gary Oldman one day and then unbelievable these guys you know it was very hard to be cynical when you're working with that level of of talent William Florence was amazing I mean I I'd followed her her work over the last few years it was really excited to work with her and had no idea what that would be like but you know I mean I think it's just a wonderful presence yeah I feel like you guys connected immediately I think I did with her as well uh I just found her to be extraordinarily well very professional but what a talent I mean yeah it's her presence she has this incredible presence on screen and and in person super charismatic yeah so charismatic it's a very tough tough role yeah very precise yes screen time yeah short but so important enough and I was live I mean just really the the root of so many things that then happened in his life later on the four of us were sitting around last night the actors here and Robert said you know apropos of nothing he said you know this next Generation coming behind us is really good yeah um you know and she's she's leading that that group which is really really great a present company excluded most every scene I had was with Alden ehrenreich and Scott Grimes and Alden I literally because you put us at Close Quarters we're kind of like good friends now and stayed in touch and it's always great when that happens and then in watching the film uh I was just re-reminded of how good Casey Affleck is okay I was like that may be one of the coolest Yeah couple scenes I've seen in a decade yeah and then of course uh Rami Malek comes in for one day and it was an absolute mic drop moment so it almost transcends this sense of we're making each other better because the competition it was almost like you were participating in and watching three generations of actors all come in kind of and almost like with a Summer Stock level of hey let's let's there's a barn let's make a show and let's do it for Maestro there's this show I used to watch on uh on the History Channel It's called man moment machine the moment was when we shot this thing and I'm sorry but you are the machine the format you used I I was surprised every day but somebody would bring something new to the table and that's that's the joy of working with a great cast and then giving them the authority in the room to play because it's a true story so they can do the research they can find out about their characters and I think for me one of the more invigorating sequences is the GAC meeting where Louis strolls you know calls the meat it comes late at night and then we did a lot of improvisations because that was Dane DeHaan and Matthew Modine and everyone I don't know if you remember where he got Dean just go very over the top yeah to prompt the discussion and prompt a different set of directions and that was really uh really interesting scene to watch everybody contribute something uh you know from Josh Hartnett to Matthew Modine Dane dehant and these guys just bringing something literally to the table and that scene scene around there I I really really enjoyed that sequence I work here will ensure a peace mankind has never seen [Music] until somebody builds a bigger one you are the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves and the world is not prepared hey seven six five four Truman needs to know what's next what's next why people who know nothing about oppenheim are going to get the most out of the film I think when I read American Prometheus you know it just started to discover all of these Stranger Than Fiction aspects to his story and the complexities of it and there were things that you just would never put in a script as a writer of fiction it wouldn't be credible but the real story has those kind of extraordinary moments um but what we talked about right from the beginning is is not an impersonation yeah we're not making a documentary our responsibility was to interpret and to produce our interpretation of the character and of of the events yeah like when you think about what he lived through the the Journey of his story of his life it's kind of Staggering it was this kind of this mad kind of Confluence of like you know politics and Science and War it was the most exciting and terrifying time to kind of live through and ended the story of his life is is fascinating that's obviously why you thought it would Merit a movie yeah and I think the connection I mean one of the first things I grabbed a hold of from the book as I was reading it the first time was the moment you realized that Los Alamos you know which would become so important in history is just this place that he and his brother like to go camping yeah and that that connection the personal with with the historic uh I thought was was really engaging yeah many people will say this is uh your greatest film and a combination of aspects of every film you've ever done it's almost like Goodwill Hunting you've made this equation where you're now at the end of the chalkboard and what the heck would you do next but we believe in you sir so my favorite film of yours is whatever the heck you do after this because you better come up with something amazing great answer you're in all of them no I'm not no I remember seeing Interstellar in the in the IMAX on my own I just remember coming out like in a terrible State just it was so emotional and you know like no one else wanted to watch it with you did you I love escaping from the house oh okay my kids were little but you know it's just it's so emotional about that movie that it always gets me yeah that movie every time I love Dunkirk I love Dunkirk I've seen that like 20 times I want to make the case for Dunkirk because when I said curly in the script he was an entirely enthusiastic about playing the character at certainly you actually called me up and we're like sure I'll do it you know because I want to work with you but couldn't I be a Spitfire pilot and I and I said no but I need you out on that boat I I know that it's an experimental script it's not fully formed but you know come along and we'll find it together out there on the water with Mark Rylan it's a little it was a little bit of that and I um and you know so I I convinced you and then you're out on the boat and you're diving in the water off the wreck and doing all this like stuff and feeling more and more miserable but cut to a couple years later character doesn't even name all that a couple years later I went to buy the box set of peaky blinders and on the back it said Killian Dunkirk Murphy my wife and I watched the proceed I think four day Prestige four days in a row I love Inception as well I I that's a kind of an impossible question it's like saying what's your favorite Hitchcock movie Ben and I growing up we went to two movies every weekend that was what we did um sometimes more I heard about this you know with Oppenheimer and Barbie open and I and I thought you know I think it's great I I'm glad that we're we're putting great options back in the multiplexes it's thank God after covet I'm glad everyone's going back to the movies and just go see them both and and have a ball you know and whatever order you want to do it in it's great that there are great options again for for for people we want our business to to come back strong thank you for joining us this has been ews around the table foreign

Channel: Entertainment Weekly

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Keywords: Entertainment Weekly, EW, oppenheimer, oppenheimer cast, oppenheimer cast interview, oppenheimer movie cast interview, emily blunt, christopher nolan, matt damon, robert downey jr, Cillian Murphy, entertainment weekly, christopher nolan interview, oppenheimer interview, rober downey interview, matt damon interview, emily blunt interview, cillian murphy interview, oppenheimer movie, around the table, ew around the table, oppenheimer behind the scenes

Id: jF2q-PsLVFI

Length: 29min 8sec (1748 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 17 2023