Christopher Nolan Explains the "Essential" Sex Scenes
As his latest film blasts into theaters this week, Christopher Nolan braces for impact, explaining why he felt Oppenheimer's sex scenes were "essential" in providing a fully-rounded portrait of its subject, and sharing why he felt nervous shooting them. The film follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man oft donned "the father of the atomic bomb", and leader of the Manhattan Project during World War II. Nolan's latest project features a stacked cast, including Cillian Murphy in the lead role, alongside Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt.
While one of the most popular and well-known directors working today, Nolan's twelfth feature-length directorial effort is still marking a number of firsts in the director's career; Oppenheimer is the first film to be shot in IMAX while using black-and-white film, as well as the director's first biopic. It may surprise you to learn that the film is also Nolan's first to include sex scenes, featuring steamy sequences between Murphy's Oppenheimer and Pugh's character, Jean Tatlock. Tatlock was romantically involved with Oppenheimer prior to, and during, his marriage with Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, portrayed in the film by Blunt. As the director ventured into new territory for his career, he admitted in an interview with Insider that he felt some apprehension regarding the scenes.
Nolan said, "Any time you’re challenging yourself to work in areas you haven’t worked in before, you should be appropriately nervous and appropriately careful and planned and prepared," though soon found he was comforted by the talent he had cast in the film. Of Pugh, the director explained "I met with her and immediately felt a creative connection. I felt this is somebody who could bring Jean Tatlock to life and have the audience understand the significance of this figure in Oppenheimer's life." Providing audiences with a portrait of Oppenheimer with which they could empathize and understand, rather than judge, was the ultimate mission of the film. Nolan believed the sex scenes played a key role in doing so, as he added "It felt very important to understand their relationship and to really see inside it and understand what made it tick without being coy or allusive about it, but to try to be intimate, to try and be in there with him and fully understand the relationship that was so important to him." Nolan said that the relationship between the two "had enormous ramifications for his later life and his ultimate fate."
The Film's Cast Came Prepared
Nolan previously shared that the film's cast all researched the real lives of their characters deeply in order to bring them to life, saying that he "was there on set every day surrounded by a team of actors who knew more than I did about what was going on from their point of view." Joining Murphy, Pugh, and Blunt in the all-star cast is Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., and Benny Safdie.
Oppenheimer hits theaters on July 21. Check out our interview with Oppenheimer's director below:
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