Oppenheimer's Cillian Murphy Revealed Just How Quickly the Movie Was Shot: 'The Pace Was Insane'
The serious three-hour-long character study should've taken forever to film… But according to Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer was shot in no time!
Christopher Nolan is known to take the most thorough and accurate approach to filming his movies: the director knows exactly what and how he wants done, and he doesn't settle for anything less. This fundamental dedication ofter stands in the way of speeding up the work, but this doesn't concern Nolan as he's focused on quality.
The director's upcoming magnum opus, Oppenheimer, is a serious, in-depth character study of one of the most influential physicists in human history — J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist and inventor behind the creation of the first nuclear bomb. This biopic aims to truly understand the genius who shaped the world.
It's clear that the scale of Nolan's ambition with Oppenheimer is immense. From exploring the nature of the grand inventor and the world around us to literally recreating an event as monumental as the Trinity Test without CGI, the director has put himself before a gargantuan task. Too much had to be done, and it had to be done flawlessly.
You would guess that such an overwhelming quest as Oppenheimer's production would take ages on each and every step, wouldn't you? Apparently, that wasn't the case at all as the movie's lead actor, Cillian Murphy, revealed during his recent appearance on WTF podcast with Marc Maron. The filming itself was really fast!
"We made the movie unbelievably quickly: we made it in 57 days. The pace of that was insane. The sets are huge, but it feels like being on an independent movie. There's just Chris and the cameraman — one camera always, unless there's some huge, huge set piece — and the boom op and that's it. There's no video village, there's no monitors, nothing. He's a very analog filmmaker," Cillian shared.
Judging from all we know about Oppenheimer, it's nothing short of a miracle that a movie as giant was filmed in less than two months.
This goes to show some serious dedication on the director's part, especially considering the "insane pace" mentioned by Murphy… And the only question left is, why was Nolan in such a hurry?
Source: WTF with Marc Maron