Cillian Murphy teams up with director Christopher Nolan Oppenheimer

Cillian Murphy teams up with director Christopher Nolan on atom bomb movie Oppenheimer

Cillian Murphy will play the creator of the atom bomb in the $100m flick

Cillian Murphy is to play atom bomb creator J Robert Oppenheimer in the new movie from top director Christopher Nolan.

The Irish actor – who is a dead ringer for the scientist – will play the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb”.

Murphy has worked with the British filmmaker on four occasions in the past, including another WW2 drama, Dunkirk. Several major studios have been involved in a bidding war to release the film in recent weeks, before filming has even begun. High-profile US studio Universal Pictures has snagged the rights to the movie.

The Cork-born actor had been rumoured to be interested in starring in the movie, but the studio confirmed he was on board this weekend.

The atomic bombs were dropped by US forces on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th of August 1945, killing hundreds of thousands of people and effectively bringing the six-year conflict to an end. Oppenheimer was the leader of a core group involved in its development.

Cillian has worked with Nolan on four different movies, including his last wartime drama Dunkirk, which told the story of the Dunkirk evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers in 1940.

The film was told through the perspectives of the Allies by sea, land and air. He also played villain The Scarecrow in two of Nolan’s trilogy of The Dark Knight/Batman films, as well as sci-fi thriller Inception.

Oppenheimer is set to be shot on Imax film and released in cinemas in the summer of 2023. Filming is due to begin early next year.

Cillian Murphy to star as Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer

Murphy has appeared in five of Nolan’s other movies, including all three parts of the Dark Knight trilogy

After years of casting him as villains, side characters, and occasionally even depriving him of a proper name—shout-out to Dunkirk’s “Shivering Soldier”—Christopher Nolan is apparently finally ready to give long-time collaborator Cillian Murphy a starring role in one of his movies. Deadline reports that the Peaky Blinders actor has now been set to star in Nolan’s upcoming Oppenheimer, where he’ll get to play the Oppenheimer, which has got to be a thrill.

Reports of Nolan’s latest have been circulating for a few months now, largely in the backdrop of his present unhappiness with frequent studio partner Warner Bros. A prolonged bidding war eventually landed the film at Universal, the first time Nolan has broken ranks with Warner since Memento, way back in 2000.

So far no plot details about Oppenheimer have slipped out, although we’re going to go ahead and venture a guess that it won’t be about the famous/infamous scientist discovering a late-life interest in peaceful backyard gardening. Really, the casting of Murphy is the biggest hint yet we’ve gotten yet about the film’s take on “the father of the atomic bomb,” suggesting that, whatever else he’s got going on, this version of the man will have nuclear-grade cheekbones and the kind of haunted, intense stare that makes that “I am become death, destroyer of worlds” stuff really and truly land.

Christopher Nolan’s New Film Casts Cillian Murphy as the Lead

Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy reuniting with Christopher Nolan to play Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan may have moved to a new studio, but he’s bringing his old collaborators with him.

Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy, a frequent supporting player in Nolan’s films, will take the lead for the first time in the Tenet director’s next project, Oppenheimer. Murphy will star as the eponymous J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in developing the first nuclear weapons.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the film is an “epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it,” as studio Universal put it in an official summary. The film is now set for release on July 21, 2023.

Christopher Nolan

Christopher Edward Nolan CBE is a British-American film director, producer, and screenwriter.

(/ˈnoʊlən/; born 30 July 1970)

His films have grossed more than US$5 billion worldwide, and have garnered 11 Academy Awards from 36 nominations.

Born and raised in London, Nolan developed an interest in filmmaking from a young age. After studying English literature at University College London, he made his feature debut with Following (1998). Nolan gained international recognition with his second film, Memento (2000), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

He transitioned from independent to studio filmmaking with Insomnia (2002), and found further critical and commercial success with The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), The Prestige (2006), and Inception (2010), which received eight Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. This was followed by Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), and Tenet (2020).

He earned Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director for his work on Dunkirk.

Cillian Murphy

Cillian Murphy is an Irish actor. He started his performing career as the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of a rock band named The Sons of Mr. Green Genes.

(/ˈkɪliən/; born 25 May 1976)

Murphy turned down a record deal in the late 1990s and began acting on stage and in short and independent films. His first notable film roles include Darren in the drama Disco Pigs (2001), Jim in the zombie horror 28 Days Later (2002), John in the dark comedy Intermission (2003), Jackson Rippner in the action thriller Red Eye (2005), and Patrick “Kitten” Braden in the comedy-drama Breakfast on Pluto (2005).

For his performance as a trans woman in the latter, he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and won an Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actor.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist who was professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

(/ˈɒpənˌhaɪmər/; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967)

Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the “father of the atomic bomb” for their role in the Manhattan Project – the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer was among those who observed the Trinity test in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945.

He later remarked that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” In August 1945, the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.