![Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/64b838102500003b00d9d036.webp?cache=UW8f8miieS&ops=scalefit_720_noupscale)
Clocking in at just over three hours, Christopher Nolanâs Oppenheimer is his longest and arguably most ambitious film yet.
The biopic sees Cillian Murphy giving a sure to be Oscar-nominated performance as the titular physicist, who is known as the âfather of the atomic bombâ.
Its not just the lead star who is being tipped for award season glory either, with his cast mates, director Nolan and the filmâs sound, special effects and wardrobe teams also likely to make it onto shortlists.
Weâre still many months away from the Golden Globes and Oscars nominee announcements but to tide you over, here are 15 behind-the-scenes facts that remind you just how impressive Oppenheimer is...
The Trinity Test recreation was filmed without special effects
Nolan is no stranger to recreating dramatic events on the big screen but in perhaps his most ambitious move yet, the director decided to film the atomic bomb test without using any CGI or visual effects. That means what you see on screen really did take place â although on a smaller scale.
Visual effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher has explained how his team created real âminiatureâ explosions and filmed those.
He told Total Film: âWe donât call them miniatures; we call them âbig-aturesâ. We do them as big as we possibly can, but we do reduce the scale so itâs manageable.
âItâs getting it closer to the camera, and doing it as big as you can in the environment.â
In order to create the intense burning created by the successful test run, Scottâs team used gasoline and propane, while aluminium powder and magnesium were added to replicate the blinding white light of a nuclear explosion.
Scott added: âWe really wanted everyone to talk about that flash, that brightness. So we tried to replicate that as much as we could.â
The opening Prometheus quote is a nod to Nolanâs source material
Oppenheimer opens with an ominous opening caption, which reads: âPrometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.â
The film is based on Kai Birdâs 2005 Oppenheimer biography American Prometheus and explaining the comparison, Kai writes in his book: âLike that rebellious Greek god Prometheusâwho stole fire from Zeus and bestowed it upon humankind, Oppenheimer gave us atomic fire.
âBut then, when he tried to control it, when he sought to make us aware of its terrible dangers, the powers-that-be, like Zeus, rose up in anger to punish him.â
Cillian Murphy got his role without auditioning
![Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/64d3a9ab22000067003a88be.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale)
Oppenheimer marks Christopher and Cillianâs sixth film together â following the Batman trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk â and given their close relationship, the Irish actor no longer needs to audition for roles.
During an interview with Radio 2, Cillian recalled the moment when he received a casual call from Nolan, who explained he had the perfect lead role for him.
âIf youâre lucky you get one or two of those [calls] in your career, you know?â he said. âIt was the best, best feeling. It was kind of euphoric, and then you go âoh thatâs a lot of workâ. So I immediately just started working.
âI had like six months before, between when he called me and we started the shoot. The script was solid and was there. It was one of the greatest scripts Iâve ever read. It was magnificent.â
The cast lived together during filming
Oppenheimer sees Americaâs greatest scientific minds living together at the Los Alamos facility in New Mexico and for the movie, Nolan also moved his cast and crew into digs together.
Emily Blunt likened the situation to âsummer campâ and told People: âWe were all in the same hotel in the middle of the New Mexican desert. We only had each other.â
But Cillian skipped their group hangouts
![Emily Blunt and Matt Damon at the Oppenheimer premiere](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/64d3a9eb2500003300ac9971.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale)
Longterm pals Emily and Matt Damon organised group dinners for the cast during filming â but the formerâs on-screen husband RSVPâd with a firm no.
Mary Poppins actor Emily added to People: âThe sheer volume of what he had to take on and shoulder is so monumental.
âOf course he didnât want to come and have dinner with us.â
Cillian added: âYou know that when you have those big roles, that responsibility, you feel itâs kind of overwhelming.â
Another contributing factor was the Irish starâs strict diet, as he lost weight to play the scientist, who in real-life subsisted on cigarettes, martinis and not so much food.
âHe was losing so much weight for the part that he just didnât eat dinner, ever,â Matt told Entertainment Tonight.
The hard to hear dialogue is (sort of) intentional
While Oppenheimer is very much deserving of its five-star reviews, cinema-goers have complained about one thing: the sound levels.
Posting on social media after seeing the movie, numerous fans noted that some of the speech sounds muffled and exchanges on-screen can sometimes be difficult to fully hear.
This is down to the fact the IMAX cameras used by Nolan arenât soundproofed.
Most directors would work around this by getting actors to re-record dialogue in post-production to make it clearer, but this is something he isnât a fan of.
âI like to use the performance that was given in the moment rather than the actor re-voice it later,â Nolan told Insider. âWhich is an artistic choice that some people disagree with, and thatâs their right.â
![Christopher Nolan](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/64d3aa5c2500006200ac9974.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale)
The script was written in first person
In another unusual move, Nolan wrote the script in first person in order to reflect how most of the film is being told from Oppenheimerâs perspective and using his memories.
Matt Damon told Vulture: âIâve never seen that done before. Instead of âOppenheimer walks across the room,â itâs âI walk across the room.â This was a way for him to signal that, Okay, this is what the movieâs going to feel like. Itâs going to feel immediate.â
Kodak had to manufacture a new type of film especially for Oppenheimer
Film purist Nolan filmed the biopic on large format cameras with IMAX 70mm film, but there was one small problem.
Oppenheimer features two timelines with one in colour and another in black-and-white. Unfortunately, black and white IMAX 70mm film didnât exist so cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema put in a call to Kodak.
He told Variety: âThey came out with test rolls for us to run through our camera. We had to re-engineer our cameras a little bit, and we had to remake our pressure plates and our backend lab work needed to be readjusted.â
âI do remember when Chris and I were sitting in the cinema and watching the results of our first black and white test and it was just freaking amazing. We had never seen anything like it.â
Cillian had no physics knowledge â but one co-star was well-prepared
![Benny Safdie](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/64d3aab22300003400c065e5.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale)
The Inception star has admitted that he doesnât âhave the intellectual capacity to understand quantum mechanicsâ but the same canât be said for Benny Safdie, who plays Edward Teller.
Prior to becoming an actor, Benny was a budding scientist and studied nuclear physics in high school.
âI was working with a physicist at Columbia University,â he told Vulture. âI was doing cosmic rays. It is a deep passion of mine.â
And another actor previously starred in another Oppenheimer-inspired project
Christopher Denham, who plays Klaus Fuchs, appeared in the 2014 series Manhattan, which took its name from the project developing the atomic weapons.
We wonât spoil the TV drama but Christopherâs Manhattan character, the entirely fictional Jim Meeks, has parallels to his Oppenheimer alter-ego.
There are no deleted scenes and thereâll never be a directorâs cut
Nolanâs love of IMAX cameras and 70mm film makes movie-making incredibly expensive, so he makes sure every single second of his movies is mapped out before yelling âactionâ.
Cillian told Collider: âThereâs no deleted scenes in Chris Nolan movies. Thatâs why there are no DVD extras on his movies because the script is the movie. He knows exactly whatâs going to end up â heâs not fiddling around with it trying to change the story. That is the movie.â
Oppenheimer features Nolanâs first ever sex scenes
Despite having directed 11 feature films before starting work on his latest, Nolan had never directed intimate scenes before.
Oppenheimer features sex scenes with the titular scientist and Jean Tatlock, a member of the communist party who was his lover before and during his marriage (played by Florence Pugh).
![Florence Pugh and Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/64abe9bb2300001b00e58d60.png?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale)
Justifying the intimate moments, Nolan told Insider they are âessentialâ to understanding Oppenheimerâs life as a whole.
âHis very intense relationship with Jean Tatlock [...] is one of the most important things in his life,â he said. âBut not least for the fact that Jean Tatlock was very explicitly a Communist and his obsession with her therefore had enormous ramifications for his later life and his ultimate fate.
âIt felt very important to understand their relationship and to really see inside it and understand what made it tick without being coy or allusive about it, but to try to be intimate, to try and be in there with him and fully understand the relationship that was so important to him.â
Florence Pughâs topless scene is very different in some cinemas around the globe
The intimate scenes between Oppenheimer and his lover earned the film its R rating, but some cinema-goers noticed an odd addition to one scene.
In countries including India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, digital censoring has been used to cover Florenceâs body with a CGI black dress.
Nolan had been thinking about Oppenheimer since he was a teenager
The director grew up in England in the 1980s when the scientist was âa part of pop culture then, without us knowing a lot about him.â
He told Bulletin: âI think I first encountered Oppenheimer in that relation; I think he was referred to in Stingâs song about the Russians that came out then and talks about Oppenheimerâs âdeadly toys.â
âIt was the peak of CND, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Greenham Common [protest]; the threat of nuclear war was when I was 12, 13, 14 â it was the biggest fear we all had,â he added.
And thereâs even an Oppenheimer reference in Tenet
In the same interview, Nolan recalls learning of how the Los Alamos scientists were told there was a chance the atomic bomb could destroy the world.
He explained: âThat struck me as the most dramatic situation in the history of the world, with any sort of possibility being an end to life on Earth. Thatâs a responsibility that nobody else in the history of the world had ever faced.
âI put a reference to that in my last film, Tenet; thereâs dialogue, a reference to that exact situation by Oppenheimer. That film deals with a science-fiction extrapolation of that notion: Can you put the toothpaste back in the tube? The danger of knowledge, once knowledge is unveiledâonce itâs known, once itâs factâyou canât wind the clock back and put that away.â