Christopher Nolan Cast His Daughter in OPPENHEIMER as Girl Who Gets Blown Up in Nuclear Explosion
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is opening in theatres this week, and the summer blockbuster boasts a star-studded cast of familiar faces including Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who ran the Manhattan Project that led to the creation of the atomic bomb during World War II; Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer; Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project; and Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
The movie also stars Florence Pugh as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber, Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence, along with Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Dane DeHaan, Dylan Arnold, David Krumholtz, Alden Ehrenreich, and Matthew Modine.
One new face you’ll see in the film though, is Nolan’s oldest daughter, Flora, who visited the “Oppenheimer” set, alongside his wife and producer Emma Thomas, while the film was still in production. Nolan then had the idea to cast Flora in a then-open role: a nameless young woman who has her face damaged by a nuclear explosion in a sequence within the main character’s mind. He told Variety:
“We needed someone to do that small part of a somewhat experimental and spontaneous sequence. So it was wonderful to just have her sort of roll with it.”
Nolan recognized the peculiarity of the casting, revealing that it was a decision that came quickly and one that was not premeditated: “Truthfully, I try not to analyze my own intentions.”
He explained that the casting further illustrates the theme of “Oppenheimer” at large:
“But the point is that if you create the ultimate destructive power it will also destroy those who are near and dear to you. I suppose this was my way of expressing that in what, to me, were the strongest possible terms.”
Oppenheimer hits theatres this weekend. Will you be checking it out?