'Oppenheimer': Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy on the Film's 'Dramatic and Important' Story (Exclusive)

etonline.com:

Christopher Nolan has been ready to tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the «father of the atomic bomb,» for years. And he's doing just that in his latest epic, .«A lot of people are familiar to some degree with Oppenheimer — that he was involved in the Manhattan Project, he ran the laboratory in Los Alamos during World War II, that they were in a desperate race against the Nazis to be the first to harness this power,» the director explained to ET's Rachel Smith. «But what happened to him afterwards is equally dramatic and important and it's not so well known.

The film has a lot to do with the consequences of actions — sort of going ahead and doing these things and then having to deal with the consequences for years afterwards.»«We live in the world that Oppenheimer created,» he added. «It's a pretty fascinating set of events.

I just don't know of a story as paradoxical, just as full of impossible situations.»The director was so fascinated by the people and events of the Manhattan Project, in fact, that he actually dropped an Easter egg about in his previous film, .«There's a reference to this idea that when Oppenheimer was running the Manhattan Project and they were doing their calculations, early on they saw the possibility that when they triggered the first atomic device, to test it, they might start a chain reaction that set fire to the atmosphere and destroyed the whole world.»«A small possibility, [but they] couldn't eliminate it completely through theory, and yet they went ahead and they pushed that button,» he continued. «And I just thought, if you could go there with the audience, if you could take the audience into that room, where they're having those conversations, where they're making those decisions.