Christopher Nolan: ‘Oppenheimer’s Seven Oscar Wins, Including Directing and Best Picture Is “A Wonderful Finish To An Incredible Year” – Oscars Backstage
11.03.2024 - 04:01
/ deadline.com
“It’s very important to me, it’s really a wonderful finish to what’s been an incredible year,” Christopher Nolan told press backstage at the Academy Awards in the wake of winning both his Best Director Oscar for Oppenheimer, along with the biggest prize of the night: Best Picture.
“It means I can do curls, they’re very heavy,” Nolan joked of his new collection of statuettes for his film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist behind the atom bomb. In Oppenheimer, longtime Nolan collaborator Cillian Murphy enacts the history of a man who changed our world forever, with Robert Downey Jr. as his jealous nemesis Lewis Strauss—both of whom won Oscars for their lead and supporting performances respectively. Emily Blunt starred as Kitty Oppenheimer and was nominated in the Supporting Actress category. The film took home seven Oscars in total, including Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography and Best Original Score.
“There was something about seeing Cillian with the hat on, and Robert Downey Jr. with his hair shaved back and Emily Blunt in old-age makeup,” Nolan said of his standout moments. “The first test, we shot it on the very first black-and-white IMAX film ever made. We projected it on an IMAX screen at the Citiwalk Universal. And that was a very special moment, especially to realize what the actors were going to do and the thing was going to work, and to see that technical side of things.”
Nolan also addressed the the film’s handling of the moral and ethical questions behind the creation of the atomic bomb. “I don’t like to speak to specific messages, because I feel that if cinema is didactic, it tends not to work dramatically so well.”
He said that his teenage son had initially suggested to him, ahead of making