In some ways,Oppenheimer,Christopher Nolans biggest non-superhero movie, was a product of the pandemic.
That year, however, everything changed.
Just as movie fans, whose movies do we love?
Oppenheimerdirector Christopher Nolan.Josh Telles for Deadline
Chriss name was always close to the top of that.
Chriss work is undeniably cinematic.
He makes films for the audience to see in the movie theater.
And so that became a strategic imperative for us.
Her determination to land the project increased when she read the script.
I was just transported by it, Langley says.
This was a story about a living person and a moment of time and history.
Its one of the best screenplays Ive read in my career.
Its very intimate on the one hand, but it also has a giant scope, she notes.
And as Chris put it to me, This is the greatest American story never told in cinema.
At the time, he didnt know who was going to play Batman.
He was, he says, just looking to see who was out there.
It was a cool photo, says Nolan, turning to Murphy.
You could see your eyes, and your presence.
I was just very struck by it.
Had you seen the movie then?
No, says Nolan.
I literally just saw a picture.
I then watched the movie, but the truth is, I already was interested.
These things are very instinctive, and thats the relationship that an audience has with an actor as well.
Its an instinctive and instant connection.
So, yeah, love at first sight.
I see the picture and Im like, Man, that guys got something.
Nolan invited him to LA for a meeting.
You walked in, and I remember thinking, Are you really going to be able to be Batman?
I just remember a sort of ripple of excitement going through the crew, he says.
Hollywood crews, particularly, theyre very professional, but quite jaded.
Murphy wasnt expecting to get the part.
I remember knowing it was a test, he says.
That would have been enough.
And then he called me out of the blue.
I did not expect him to say, Well, how about this other part?
And previously all those villains were played by actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jack Nicholson.
They were the biggest stars in the films.
But no, [the studio] got it.
They were all blown away by the test.
So, what made him right for the villain but not Batman?
I dont think he had the physicality at the time, says Nolan.
So much of acting is about emotional truth.
And when you put on a costume like the Batsuit, you have to become this icon.
Christian had this crazy energy that he just directed.
Hed figured out how that worked and what that would be the way Bruce Wayne does in the film.
He adopts this persona.
Its a very specific thing.
And he tore a hole on the screen as Batman.
It was like, there was no question.
Nolan turns to Murphy.
But it was interesting watchingPeaky Blindersyears later and seeing you play Tommy Shelby, he says.
Whatever it is were talking about here, youd figured it out.
In the way Batman does, or an iconic character of that kind.
Theres a physicality thats extremely confident and strong in everything he does, in every gesture.
I think it was both, says Murphy.
Id never been offered those parts.
But I always think, Chris, that one of your underrated strengths is casting.
Everyone knows all of your amazing strengths, but you cast things exquisitely.
So, what makes an actor right for the bang out of role he was wrong for earlier?
Ill tell you a story, says Nolan.
I was talking to one of the crew, Nathan Crowley, who designed theBatmanfilms.
He told me he had seenPeaky Blinders.
And he said to me, Yeah, Cillian put on all this weight for the part.
I watch it, and Im like, Thats not what it is, its not that.
But thats not what I saw.
I had only seen him in films likeBrazil, and he was a fairly slight guy.
I watched him in real life play this huge role and he just seemed like this enormous force.
I dont know how you do that, says Nolan.
I mean, thats the gift of great actors.
And I dont know how it works, but Ive seen it.
I dont know what it is either, says Murphy.
Whatever that elusive quality was, Nolan knew he needed it to tell the story of Robert Oppenheimer.
But framing Oppenheimers story was to be the biggest challenge of his career.
It was a time of great fear of nuclear weapons.
I talked to Steven Spielberg about this.
It was like growing up in the 60s, with the Cuban missile crisis.
The 80s were a very similar thing.
There were protests, and there was a lot in the pop culture about nuclear weapons.
And everything else followed after that.
Once Id read that, thats where I started to see a personal connection, he says.
It was a bunch of different things coming together.
American Prometheusis such a remarkable book, Nolan muses.
Martin Sherwin worked on it for 20 years before Kai Bird joined.
They did another five years.
Its a quarter of a century of research and interviews.
I got the benefit of that, which was wonderful.
Key to the storys attraction was Oppenheimer himself, and Nolan was determined to unravel the scientists enigma.
Was he a narcissist or a hero?
I think he was definitely a hero, definitely a narcissist, Nolan concludes.
He was a lot of different things.
Theres a lot of dangerous tension inside this guy.
A lot of dangerous mental energy.
A day or two later, Chris called me.
This was out of the blue.
So, it came out of the blue, and in the best way possible because I was unemployed.
I hadnt any work lined up.
It was perfect timing, says Nolan.
Then it was Nolans turn to sweat, when he showed Murphy the script.
I said, How about it?
And then we came back, and we had a chat about it.
I remember doing this with Heath [Ledger] onThe Dark Knight.
Hed signed up for it, and then I showed him the script.
Theres that moment of, like, Are you going to feel good about that commitment?
He turns to Murphy.
But you seemed very into the script.
I wouldnt say relieved, Id say you seemed excited.
At this, Murphy breaks into a big smile.
It was one of the greatest scripts Id ever read, he says.
It was just astounding.
But I knew it was huge.
I knew this wasnt just a part you could turn up at next week and get going.
I was immediately going, All right, fck, fck, f*ck.
Ive got to do all of this.
And, in fact, I was already working, getting going before I read the script.
Murphy did more than just try on Oppenheimers signature hat.
But I wanted to start feeling like him.
I watched all the historical materials.
I read the book, obviously.
I started looking at all his lectures online.
Any other stuff that was around.
All the accounts from people that knew him were really, really interesting to me.
Talking to [physicist] Kip Thorne, who was the scientific advisor on it.
He had been lectured by Oppenheimer, which was really, really useful.
Id called him because I needed his help on the whole quantum physics thing.
Those testimonials helped Oppenheimer capture gestures and mannerisms that most of the audience for the film wouldnt register.
He was very good at summarizing a discussion.
Which I think became absolutely key to the whole, to all of the Manhattan Project scenes.
He was an excellent synthesizer and manager, Murphy agrees.
He didnt seem the obvious choice for it, but he was.
Everything about him was constructed, says Nolan.
Oppenheimer constructed his entire persona, his entire self.
Thats why I threw the David Bowie photographs at you, Cillian.
This was the Thin White Duke era.
Obviously, its a completely different world, but he used his persona to achieve a mass of things.
So, it was there in the back of my script for the whole shoot.
Similarly, Oppenheimer became a punching bag in a politically charged kangaroo court.
My brother [Jonathan] wrote it.
It kills me, because its the line that most resonates.
And at the time, I didnt even understand it.
He says, You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.
Is that really a thing?
And then, over the years since that films come out, it just seems truer and truer.
In this story, its absolutely that.
Build them up, tear them down.
Its the way we treat people.
Murphy believes that the security of 20 years working together emboldened him.
Nolan has his own theory.
You must have felt very comfortable in that character.
But then youre moving to an arena where all thats gone.
This was a true out of the hot tub and into the cold plunge moment.
Nolan appreciated the effort it took.
It was towards the end of the shoot.
He was like, Hes exhausted.
And I said, Thanks, Robert, hell be fine.
This is true, I think, of all great performances; you see what you see on set.
But then, in the edit, you actually see it the way the actor has performed it.
Its a really pretty magical thing.
One of the first filmmakers Nolan showed the film to said something that really stuck with him.
Nolan knew exactly what he was talking about.
Because thats the thing, he says.
Theres always that moment.
And that is not in this performance.
This performance is totally pure.
Oppenheimer is the absolute essence of that.
The performance embraces that and carries the audience.
But if the performance didnt unselfconsciously embrace that, it wouldnt work at all.
Its the nicest thing you could say, he smiles.
Strauss looks on, but Einstein walks past and ignores him.
And thats from Chriss imagination.
Its not from history, but its just genius.
And I didnt know what that exact note was.
Because he puts the question to the audience, in a way.
Do you think the world will forgive you?
This is who I feel he is.
I feel that hes ahead of those people in that room who are torturing him.
I feel like hedoeshave a vision to the world beyond that.
And its partly a vision of fear, and a vision of the idea of the chain reaction.
But its also partly how history will judge him.
Its sort of knowing that the way to win is actually to lose.
That was what I felt was inside him, and then the way you played it, Cillian.
But theres also great suffering.
And I thought, I mean, Jason Clarke does such a wonderful job in the scene.
Well, you f*ckingmadehim go nuts!
I thought at one point he was actually going to punch me out.
And then you used that take.
Nolan lights up at the memory: He was throwing stuff, and thats mostly the take we used.
Its a combination of different takes, but that one was absolutely key.
But we came back the next day to do his side.
This is a case in point, says Murphy, where we were doing that big push.
I remember going, Do you think we got it, Chris?
And you were like, Eh.
Sometimes it doesnt work, but that time it did.
What are the key shifts that you need the audience to be struck by?
That was always going to be just a crazy shift, he continues.
The way in which Cillian performed that, it was very precise because it couldnt be portentous.
You dont want to foreshadow that in the performance.
To him, its actually exciting.
You see that a lot, particularly this time of year.
Its like people want movies to be able to send messages.
Im sorry Im going on a bit about this, but its a really interesting question.
Oppenheimer was one of the smartest people who ever lived.
He knew exactly where this was going.
The point is,they had to do it.
And so, they had to do what they had to do.
But they did it knowing that the consequences would be potentially awful.
Thats what makes the story so compelling from a human point of view.
Its not that they didnt realize where this was going.
It was that they felt they had no choice.
