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Short filmTranscript
00:00 crashing a plane, exploding a bomb, is there something else like this you want to do but maybe cinema isn't ready for it?
00:08 This is a national emergency.
00:11 Detonator's charged!
00:26 You've said before that Oppenheimer's story has been with you for a long time, but as you work more deeply in this film, were there new feelings, new perspectives about it?
00:37 I've learned so much about his story and I've found his story to be one of the most dramatic I've ever encountered.
00:43 Particularly once you start to really understand why he did the things he did.
00:47 And the film aims to try and put you into his head and have you understand the situations he was in and why he went down the particular paths he did.
00:55 That for me is what gives the story its strength and its excitement.
00:59 Is realizing that there were no easy answers to the situations he was presented with.
01:04 He did the best he could, he did the things he thought were right, but it's really a film about consequences.
01:10 I imagine that portraying real people involves you trying to see the world through their eyes.
01:16 But when we talk about someone with such a unique mind, how complex is this process? Where did you start?
01:24 Well it was very interesting because the script was written in the first person, which I had never experienced before.
01:29 Then I knew that it was going to be a hugely subjective point of view that Chris wanted to tell through Oppenheimer's eyes.
01:35 You just have to do the research really. I did an awful lot of reading and looking at as much archival material as I could get my hands on.
01:44 And then just working very closely with Chris.
01:46 I had asked Chris to really push me in this movie because I respond well to that and he gets extraordinary performances out of people.
01:54 So yeah, it was completely exhilarating.
01:57 I think Chris sees him as the most important person to ever live.
02:00 I think that's kind of the treatment he deserves if you're going to make a movie about him, given what he did with his life.
02:07 The script was an amazing adaptation of this very, very dense book that won the Pulitzer Prize that's about Oppenheimer.
02:13 So I feel like Chris did a beautiful job kind of capturing on the page.
02:19 And then casting Killian was just, in retrospect, obvious, but it was exactly what the film needed.
02:26 And it's one of the great, great screen performances I've ever seen.
02:29 Are we saying there's a chance that when we push that button, we destroy the world?
02:36 Chances are near zero.
02:38 Near zero.
02:40 What do you want from Theory of Loan?
02:42 Zero.
02:43 Would be nice.
02:44 How was your first thought when you found out there was going to be a bomb explosion with no CGI?
02:53 I expected it because I've worked with Chris before on Interstellar and I know his whole philosophy about movie making.
03:03 And it's that he wants to do it all in camera, the real way, the way it's always been done.
03:07 And he feels that you get better performances and everything works better if you really capture it in camera.
03:14 And the audience experiences it differently.
03:17 There is something about CGI that keeps you at arm's length and you disassociate from the nightmarish feeling he was trying to create.
03:24 It does feel nightmarish. It does feel terrifying. He wanted it to feel terrifying.
03:28 And you can feel the difference watching it.
03:30 Of course. That makes sense. It's Chris.
03:33 Besides the huge challenge of creating the bomb explosion with no CGI,
03:38 I want to know what do you recall about the work of creating the right tension on the scene so the bomb would have its full dramatic effect?
03:48 Yeah, I mean really the Trinity test we knew had to be a showstopper in the film.
03:54 And we put a lot of attention and care into the mechanics of it, to the build up to the explosion and the way in which we were going to film that.
04:02 The fact that we were doing, rather than CG, real things on set, real explosions and so forth,
04:08 to get this idea across meant that we were out there on the real location, in the desert, in the middle of the night, in these bunkers,
04:16 really focused on the event in some small way, the way they would have been when they did the Manhattan Project.
04:22 I think it was very helpful for the actors.
04:25 But also there was a lot of attention from the designer, from the prop makers, from the effects people about the detail of the device, the gadget they called it, which was this first atomic bomb.
04:35 All builds and builds tension towards this moment that they're all focused on, that we've been waiting for.
04:40 And that's very important to the success of the sequence, is to really focus the attention on the build up and the mechanics of the build up to the detonation.
04:48 And he wanted to put the audience right on his shoulder and put the audience right inside the process, those kind of moral dilemmas that Oppenheimer was facing all the time.
04:57 I was just watching The Devil Wears Prada on airplanes.
05:00 We just watched it recently. My daughters love that movie, so we watch it every once in a while.
05:05 And actually I love to see you and Cillian again, from the most silent film to the loudest.
05:11 That's funny.
05:13 How did you work this dynamic between Kitty and Oppenheimer, especially as they were both struggling so lonely?
05:22 We have a shorthand, we know each other, we're pals.
05:25 And so to jump into this rather tempestuous marriage was, at least I felt, a soft place to land, working with him.
05:33 I think they were a fascinating couple.
05:35 They were a monumental presence in each other's lives, like more than a marriage.
05:40 It was like this pact, this bond between them.
05:43 She was his biggest champion.
05:45 She was a very difficult woman, clearly, and had her own demons.
05:49 But ultimately he was a sounding board, a confidant.
05:53 And I think a lot of what he was able to achieve was because she pushed him towards it.
05:58 She pushed him and pushed him.
06:00 So it was an exciting marriage to portray.
06:03 It was very real, very intimate, very raw at times.
06:06 I don't think Oppenheimer is trying to teach us a lesson, but also invite us to think about the present.
06:27 So as you immerse yourself in the story, what kind of connections do you start to make with the reality we're living in now?
06:35 It's a great question because I think we all, naturally, because this idea of nuclear annihilation is so terrifying,
06:43 we kind of have to keep it at a distance.
06:46 And this movie forces us to reflect on it again.
06:49 And I feel like that's the purpose the movie serves, is for people to talk about it.
06:54 What I love about his movies is they're endlessly interesting, but he never gives you answers.
06:59 His movies ask questions and they trust the audience to do the rest of the work together.
07:04 And hopefully people will leave this movie wanting to talk to each other and wanting to reflect.
07:08 And that's what we've been hearing so far, is a lot of people really...
07:11 - Needing to metabolise it properly afterwards. - Yeah.
07:15 It's interesting. I think if you look at my previous film, Tenet, there's a reference to Oppenheimer.
07:20 And that's in there as an analogy, but I realised making this film with Tenet is very much about that notion of,
07:29 can you un-invent something? If there were a way to have Oppenheimer un-invent the nuclear bomb,
07:35 there isn't a way to do that.
07:37 And that's the significance of his story, and that's why his story is so important to all of us,
07:41 and why he's such a significant figure, because his actions change the world forever.
07:46 And they will never change back.
07:48 I want to know a little about what you think about the visuals of the film,
07:51 because it gives the audience a very unique experience.
07:55 But how is it for you to see yourself pictured in ways that were never done before?
08:02 Yeah, it was mind-blowing. Because the way Chris works, you don't see anything.
08:05 There's no video village, we don't get to see anything.
08:08 So when I saw the movie, it was the first time I had seen the whole thing, and it blew my mind.
08:12 I was so impressed by how he managed to visualize Oppenheimer's interior world. I thought that was extraordinary.
08:18 Crashing a plane, exploding a bomb, is there something else like this you want to do, but maybe cinema isn't ready for it?
08:26 I don't know. All my care and attention of late has been about this film.
08:32 And now that it's finished, it's exciting for us to show it to an audience.
08:37 And for me, it's the audience that finishes the film for me, and shows me what it was, and tells me what it is.
08:43 After that, I start thinking about other things to blow up.
08:46 You are the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves.
08:51 And the world is not prepared.
09:01 Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three.
09:11 Truman needs to know what's next.
09:13 What's next?
09:14 One.
09:15 (dramatic music)