Sure, the cast of “Oppenheimer” includes just about everyone in Hollywood, but writer-director Christopher Nolan also decided to keep it all in the family for the ensemble film.
Nolan revealed a The UK Telegraph that he cast his college-aged daughter Flora Nolan as an unnamed woman who, according to the piece, appears in “a hellish, chilling vision in which flesh is flayed from her face by a piercing white light ” as a result of the atomic bomb. Cillian Murphy plays scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who developed the nuclear weapon.
“We needed someone to do that small part of a sequence that was somewhat experimental and spontaneous,” Nolan said of casting Flora, a student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, “so it was wonderful to have her kind of role with it”. (Flora Nolan is credited on IMDb as a “burn victim” and also appeared briefly in Nolan’s 2014 “Interstellar.”
Related stories
Christopher Nolan ‘Absolutely’ Won’t Work On Another Film Until Strike Ends: ‘It’s Not About Me’
‘Gray Matter’ Review: Latest Movie ‘Project Greenlight’ Plays It Too Safe
The “Tenet” director continued, “I hope you don’t make me look like Michael Powell in ‘Peeping Tom,'” referring to director Powell casting his nine-year-old son as the infant version of a serial killer in the 1960 classic. “But yeah, I mean, gosh, you’re not wrong. Honestly, I try not to analyze my intentions.
Nolan added, “But the point is, if you create maximum destructive power, it will also destroy those near and dear to you. So I suppose this was my way of putting it in what, to me, were the strongest terms possible.
Nolan recently made reference to his children in a recent Hollywood reporter article during which he admitted that he does not own a smartphone. “My kids would probably say I’m a complete Luddite,” Nolan said. “I would actually resist that description. I think the technology and what it can provide is amazing. My personal choice is how I get involved.
The author of “Memento” said: “It’s about the level of distraction. If I’m generating my own material and writing my own scripts, being on a smartphone all day would not be very helpful for me.
Nolan also joked that the ending of “Oppenheimer” mirrors his elusive conclusion to “Inception.”
“I mean, the ending of ‘Inception’ is exactly that. There’s a nihilistic take on that ending, right? But he has also moved on and is with his children. Ambiguity is not emotional ambiguity,” Nolan said Wired earlier this year. “She IS intellectual to the public. It’s funny, I think there’s an interesting relationship between Inception and Oppenheimer’s endings to explore. Oppenheimer has a complicated ending. Complicated Feelings.
For more details on “Oppenheimer”, click here.
