Florence Pugh Talks About Why Christopher Nolan Apologized to Her About Her OPPENHEIMER Role
Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer featured one hell of an impressive ensemble cast, but the whole story revolved around Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer, everyone else in the film was pretty much a supporting character.
One of those supporting characters was Florence Pugh, who played Jean Tatlock in the story. It didn’t matter how big of a role she had in the movie, though, because Pugh would’ve taken any role to work with Nolan. Regardless, Nolan felt the need to apologize to Pugh for the size of the role and the minimal screen time that she had.
During an interview with MTV UK, Pugh talked about how Nolan approached her about the role and recalled his apology to her. She said:
"I didn't really know what was going on or what it was that was being made. Except I knew that Chris really, really wanted me to know that it wasn't a very big role, and he understands if I don't want to come near it. And I was like, 'Doesn't matter. Even if I'm a coffee maker at a café in the back of the room, let's do it.'
"I remember he apologized by the size of the role. I was like, 'Please don't apologize, And then he said, 'We'll send you the script, and honestly, you just read it and decide if it's like...I completely understand the sizing thing.' And I remember that evening when I got the script being like, 'I don't need to...I know I'm going to do it.'"
While the size of her role wasn’t huge, it was bigger than some of the other roles in the film that were played by big actors, and it was a pivotal role in the story, and she gave a great performance.
Oppenheimer and Tatlock had a years-long romantic relationship, which continued even continued after Oppenheimer married his wife Kitty. Tatlock was found dead in an apparent suicide, which as you might imagine took an emotional toll on Oppenheimer. Some theories suggest that the suicide was staged and Tatlock's death was actually the result of her being too close to Oppenheimer and potentially having access to national secrets.