Christopher Nolan Cast ‘A Lot of Real Scientists’ as ‘Oppenheimer’ Extras: ‘We Have to Be Faithful to History Here’
variety.comZack Sharf Digital News Director Christopher Nolan revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he cast real scientists as extras in “Oppenheimer,” a historical drama about theoretical physicist J.
Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb. The cast is full of stars such as Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and Florence Pugh, but Nolan made sure to bring in actual scientists for certain scenes to maintain the film’s authenticity. “We were in the real Los Alamos and we had a lot of real scientists as extras,” Nolan said. “We needed the crowd of extras to give reactions, and improvise, and we were getting sort of impromptu, very educated speeches.
It was really fun to listen to.” Nolan continued, “You’ve been on sets where you’ve got a lot of extras around and they’re more or less thinking about lunch.
These guys were thinking about the geopolitical implications of nuclear arms and knew a lot about it. It actually was a great reminder every day of: We have to be really on our game, we have to be faithful to the history here, and really know what we’re up to.” Murphy added to Entertainment Weekly about the cast, “Every day, you had these phenomenalactors, who are heroes of mine, coming in.
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