Cillian Murphy on the “exciting” yet “terrifying” moment he was asked to star in Oppenheimer – Contenders Film LA

Cillian Murphy had to “sit down for a moment” and collect his thoughts when he received an unexpected call from director and longtime collaborator Christopher Nolan promising him the lead role in his epic biographical thriller. Oppenheimer.

During Deadline’s “Contenders Film: Los Angeles” discussion for the Universal film, Murphy said, “I knew it was a big deal, but it was definitely an exciting feeling, but also scary, but this is the place “That’s where I always want to be when I make films. Work – I never want it to feel easy or safe, but it was a big one and I knew it was a big responsibility and a lot of work.”

Murphy plays the titular complicated and brilliant physicist tasked with leading the Manhattan Project, the secret effort to build the atomic bomb.

The story unfolds in an unusual first-person perspective, with a moral conundrum brewing in Oppenheimer’s mind as he begins to imagine the dangers beyond the short-term use of a weapon that could trigger an arms race and a new world mission (and it did too). ). Order that changed us forever.

The film was a worldwide success over the weekend, earning $949.8 million at the worldwide box office. Oppenheimer opened in Nolan’s favorite time slot in July and became part of the zeitgeist with the Barbenheimer phenomenon that followed, but regardless, the best box office success of his career is nothing short of a stunning performance for a three-hour long, R-rated drama.

Murphy was joined on Contenders by producer Emma Thomas, costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, hair department Jamie Leigh McIntosh and VFX supervisor Andrew Jackson.

“The script was honestly one of the best things I’ve ever read – it was breathtaking in its ambition and scope, but also in the way it clearly developed Oppenheimer’s story,” Murphy said. “[Nolan] I wrote it in the first person, which I had never experienced before, so it was a new experience for me when I read it. …These are the biggest moral dilemmas possible, the biggest drama possible, the things that all these characters are struggling with, so you just have to immerse yourself in them. …But Chris wrote it and adapted it from the book and lived with it for so long. He has such a good understanding of the story and how he wants to tell the story and portray the character… We worked incredibly closely together from the beginning to figure that out.

Thomas added: “Every film you make has its own challenges and I think I’m often a little bit super nervous when I read the scripts that Chris writes because I think about what the hell it’s going to do.” the next few years, but also how on earth are we going to do these things? With this script it was actually very different because I felt like we had a handle on the experiences we had so far. We had the means of shooting in the desert, we had the sort of logistical aspects, but what I found was much more difficult in that area was how on earth were we going to do this big story in a film summarized – these are also big problems, deep moral ambiguity, how do we release a film like this in the summer and get people to engage with it and make a film that entertains and challenges people through the ideas in it ?

She praised Murphy and the team.

“I think it’s largely down to Cillian’s performance, which expresses so much, and of course the work of everyone who went into the film, that Chris somehow managed to keep the thread in the thread and at the same time entertain and address important issues. ” in a respectful manner while ushering audiences into the theaters. to have an experience,” she said.

Come back on Monday for the panel video.

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