The quotes in this article are from an interview conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.Whenever an actor lands a lead role in a project, they know they’ll gear up for a big challenge. It gets even more intense when they’re playing historical figures because then there’s a whole other layer of research that they’ll have to do in order to sound and even move convincingly as their character. WhenCillian Murphywas handpicked byChristopher Nolanto play the titular role inOppenheimer, he knew that he had his work cut out for him — as he told Collider in an interview prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Murphy and Nolan have worked together several times, but Murphy told Collider’sSteve Weintraubthat he still gets surprised by Nolan’s call because he does it “out of the blue” and he had “no idea” that Nolan was considering him for a lead historical role in amassively ambitious project. From the call on, Murphy says he knew he “had six months to really go in.” He could only have one reaction to the life-changing phone call, though:
“I can’t think of any better word than it’s a dream. It sounds like such a cliché, but it’s the truth. But I had no idea he was going to call me. He just called me out of the blue. That’s his MO; you never hear from him and then he calls. So he called me, and I genuinely didn’t know what it would be, and then he said, ‘I’m making this movie about Oppenheimer and I would like you to play Oppenheimer.’ It’s a big shock, and a very pleasant one, but then you kind of go, ‘Okay, now I have a lot of work to do.’”
Is Six Months Enough To Learn How to Embody a Historical Figure Like Oppenheimer?
Murphy also revealed to Collider that his typical process of stepping into the shoes of a historical figure “would have taken more time,” but admitted that “six months was good” because they “just went straight at it” the moment the call ended. From that point on, it’s pretty easy to imagine that thePeaky Blindersstar kicked off heavy research to embody the father of theatomic bomb— and now you cansee how it played out on the big screen.
The star-studded cast ofOppenheimeralso featuresRobert Downey Jr.(Avengers: Endgame),Emily Blunt(A Quiet Place),Matt Damon(Air),Florence Pugh(Black Widow),Gary Oldman(Mank),Kenneth Branagh(Death on the Nile),Rami Malek(Bohemian Rhapsody),Josh Hartnett(Black Mirror),Jack Quaid(The Boys),Alden Ehrenreich(Solo: A Star Wars Story) andOlivia Thirlby(Goliath).
