Cillian Murphy has named the Christopher Nolan he thinks would make the best double bill with Oppenheimer.
The Irish actor plays J Robert Oppenheimer in the biographical drama about the man who helped create the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nolan’s latest film has become a blockbuster hit – and one of the most successful film of the director’s career to date. At the time of writing, it has made $560.9m globally, and looks set to majorly build on this in the coming weeks following news its 70mm IMAX run has been extended.
Part of the reason for its huge success is undoubtedly due to the Barbenheimer craze, which saw many double bill the film with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Murphy told The Independent, in an interview completed ahead of the Hollywood actors’s strike, that he was “going to see Barbie“ – but he was then asked which Nolan film he would pick for a double bill with Oppenheimer.
It turns out that, for Murphy, it comes down to “two options”.
He told The Independent: “You could go Interstellar, which is very... explores similar scientific, physic themes. Or you could watch Dunkirk, which is also set in World War II. Dunkirk is shorter, so that might be a good match ‘cause it’s like an hour-and-a-half, and then you can go into [Oppenheimer].”
Oppenheimer marks Murphy’s sixth collaboration with Nolan after the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk.
When asked which Nolan film he’d have liked to appeared in, he settled for Interstellar, the space drama starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway released in 2017.
“I adore Interstellar just because I find it so emotional,” he said.
“I remember seeing it in the cinema when I had little kids. It just had a big impact on me. It broke my heart. I love watching his films when I’m not in them because you don’t have to freak out about the size of your ears, or whatever.”
He said, though, that the “right people” were cast in the film. Murphy also addressed whether would star in 28 Years Later, a 28 Days Later sequel in the works from Danny Boyle and Alex Garland.
Fans of Oppenheimer have been highighting a small “disturbing” detail involving Florence Pugh’s character, Jean Tatlock, that many viewers missed the first time around.
Read The Independent’s full interview with Murphy and Nolan here.
