Emily Blunt (‘Oppenheimer’) on director Christopher Nolan: ‘The performances in his movies are really great because he gives you wings’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“There’s no bedlam on set, there’s no chaos, and it just gives actors wings,” reveals Emily Blunt about what she most values about working with acclaimed writer/director Christopher Nolan. For our recent webchat she adds, “usually as an actor, you probably are a bit concerned about ‘oh, does this scene work, or I don’t know if I love this this, or what’s the camera doing?’ You’re thinking about that stuff sometimes if you don’t feel secure in that way. And he just alleviates all of that. If actors are trusting, they have wings. The performances in his movies are really great because he gives you wings.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
SEE Cillian Murphy (‘Oppenheimer’) interview
“Oppenheimer” is the latest prestige epic by the acclaimed five-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker (“Memento,” “Dunkirk,” “Inception”), starring Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist credited with being the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the WWII-era Manhattan Project. Nolan’s screenplay is adapted from the 2005 biography “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, recounting Oppenheimer’s rise to prominence, from early days as a student, to heading up the Manhattan Project, and his eventual fall from grace during his 1954 security hearing. SAG Award winner Blunt (“A Quiet Place”) stars as Oppenheimer’s wife Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, alongside a stellar cast including Oscar nominees Robert Downey Jr. (“Chaplin,” “Tropic Thunder”) and Florence Pugh (“Little Women”), Josh Hartnett and Oscar winners Matt Damon (“Good Will Hunting”), Casey Affleck (“Manchester by the Sea”), Rami Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) and Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”).
Blunt’s performance reaches a satisfying crescendo towards the end of the three-hour epic when a beleaguered Kitty takes the stand during a tense interrogation at her husband’s security hearing. Confronted with questions about her checkered past, Kitty bristles and snaps back, putting the room full of men in their place. It’s Blunt’s shining moment as Kitty throws caution to the wind by standing by her husband. “The scene was so exhilarating on the page,” Blunt admits. “You’re just wanting someone to come in there and fight for him. She had deteriorated and become so unpredictable and clearly had a problem with alcohol at that point. And so I think she’s sort of set up to fail and to choke.”
“What had helped weirdly was that we’d shot all of the scenes beforehand, where she’s just sitting behind him, festering with rage at everyone coming in, not accounting for their own parts in it, not supporting him. We’d filmed all of that for days in this very claustrophobic, very intense room that really was Oppenheimer interrogated in a very shabby little room, with no sense of ceremony or anything like that. I’d felt this sort of fester build in me quite naturally, just watching everyone come in and rake him across the coals and so when it came time to do the scene,” she explains. “I really felt myself go. I always thought the scene really was about fighting for him, but it’s a reclamation for herself of who she is after the loss of dignity and belief in her. And you want to see that brilliant brain come back to life, and I always wanted to play it at a great velocity. I thought it would be exciting. She needs to intimidate him. She needs to one up him. I had a great partner in Jason, and I had a very open hearted, open-minded director in Chris.”
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