Why Christopher Nolan wrote Oppenheimer script in the first person

When Christopher Nolan was working on the script for Oppenheimer, the filmmaker made the unusual decision of writing the screenplay in the first person, essentially depicting events from the POV of his lead character, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. In a behind-the-scenes sneak peek, which EW can exclusively reveal in the video above, the director explains his thinking with regard to that decision.

"In the case of this film, I wrote the script in the first person," says Nolan, whose previous credits include Inception and Interstellar. "It's the only time I've done that. It made it clear to anyone who read the script that we're on this ride with Oppenheimer."

In the same video, Cillian Murphy, who plays the role of Oppenheimer — the so-called "father of the atomic bomb" — admits to being surprised by the script's format when he began reading the screenplay.

"It took me a minute to actually comprehend," the actor says, "and then I realized, oh, that's a huge responsibility."

Later in the video, Murphy explains how Oppenheimer "sees things in sort of different dimensions. Physicists operate on a completely different level than we do, and I think sometimes it's a burden. So I was really interested in that."

The featurette contains interview material with several other cast members, including Emily Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer's wife Kitty, and Robert Downey Jr., who portrays Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss.

"If Chris Nolan calls you and says that he'd like to meet with you, you're like, I don't care what it is," Blunt says.

"From the second I read the script, I knew that he had a very acute vision," Downey adds of Nolan, "and if he were able to render that vision that this film would be a masterpiece."

Florence Pugh, who plays Oppenheimer's lover, Jean Tatlock, is also featured in the clip The Black Widow and Don't Worry Darling actress describes her character as "blunt, [knows] what she wants, but at no point is she ever punished for that, and especially not by Oppenheimer."

Matt Damon costars in the film as General Leslie Groves, who put Oppenheimer in charge of the Manhattan project, the scientific initiative which resulted in the creation of the atom bomb.

"I tried to familiarize myself with Groves and the history and then talk to Chris about what he needed from that part," Damon says in the video. "Groves was almost like a kindergarten teacher in some respects, because these scientists were so eccentric and not necessarily trustworthy, I mean, if you're looking from a military perspective."

"It's a profoundly moving and overwhelming experience, watching it," Murphy says of the finished film towards the end of the featurette. "You feel so compelled to watch what's happening with these people and how they're drawn into the biggest of moral dilemmas, and what they're wrestling with, all of the characters."

Nolan and Murphy previously discussed the Oppenheimer shoot for EW's 2023 Summer Preview.

"The shoot was very sort of fast and furious and efficient," the director said at the time. "Hoyte [Van Hoytema, Nolan's regular cinematographer] and myself — from the technical end — we kind of jumped back to an earlier point in both of our careers, where we had no Steadicam on set, we had no playback or monitors. We were approaching it in a very stripped-down manner which gave us a terrific energy. I think it gelled very well with the ensemble nature of the piece. Even though Oppenheimer is at the center of it, we had this incredible ensemble of actors bringing so much to the table, and we really wanted to be able to move fast, jump around, and capture anything that was going to get thrown up by that."

"Every day, you had these phenomenal actors, who are heroes of mine, coming in," Murphy said. "Every day, you were having to raise your game to work with these legends. Everybody was so unbelievably well-prepared. Every single actor, no matter what size their role or the significance of their character in history, each one of them had this massive depth of knowledge that they could draw on."

Oppenheimer will be released in theaters this July 21. Watch the Oppenheimer sneak peek above.

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