Oppenheimer is here, and it’s said to be spectacular. The initial reviews for the film have been glowing, with many praising Christopher Nolan’s intimate handling of the material as a director, and Cillian Murphy’s magnetic screen presence as an actor. Anybody keeping track of these two needn’t be surprised by the praise. Oppenheimer is their sixth collaboration, and previous films include modern classics like Inception (2010) and the Dark Knight trilogy (2005-12).
Murphy has played virtually every kind of character for Nolan, whether it be a comic book villain or a shell-shocked World War II soldier, but Oppenheimer presented him a new challenge: playing a very famous, and very real person. Murphy had only placed a real person once before, in the war drama Anthropoid (2016), but the director claimed that he took to it like a natural. Nolan was so impressed with his longtime friend, in fact, that he would cast him in a biopic about his own life.
The tidbit came about during Nolan’s chat with JOE. “If you found out tomorrow that someone was directing a biopic about you,” the interviewer asked. “What piece of advice would you give that director?” Nolan initially joked and said “don’t,” but quickly retracted his statement and gave a more useful bit of advice: “cast Cillian Murphy.”
While Nolan and Murphy look nothing alike, it’s clear the two men have an affinity for each other’s working styles, and have made some of their best work together. Murphy is such a good actor we wouldn’t be surprised if he was able to pull from his experiences on the set and put together a striking Nolan impression.
Oppenheimer also marks the first time that Murphy has been the star of a Nolan film, as opposed to a supporting actor. It was a promotion that the director was eager to announce. “I got to call him up and say ‘this is the one where you take center stage’,” he recalled. “It was a very exciting day to be able to do that, because I’ve known for so long his potential.”
The most exciting part of the Nolan and Murphy dynamic, other than Oppenheimer, is the fact that they’ve already made it clear they plan to keep working together.