He was still asleep on Tuesday when Christopher Nolan's “Oppenheimer'' was nominated for a record 13 Academy Awards. Nolan's wife and producing partner Emma Thomas inspired him after her phone was flooded with messages of her well wishes.
“Don't take that as a disrespect,” Nolan told The Associated Press with a laugh. “We didn't want to jinx anything. Watching the nominated films was beyond our nerves, so we just had a restless night and slept through it.”
Nolan and Thomas didn't have much reason to worry. “Oppenheimer,” Nolan's sprawling American saga about J. Walter Oppenheimer and the making of the atomic bomb, has been more or less an Oscar frontrunner since its acclaimed debut in late July. On Tuesday, it earned nominations for every creative aspect of its accomplishments, including nods for the performances of Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt.
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“Oppenheimer'' was nominated for Best Director and Original Screenplay by Nolan. For the filming of Hoyte Van Hoytema. Edited by Jennifer Rame. Costume design by Ellen Mirojnick. Production design by Ruth de Jong and Claire Kaufman. Makeup and hairstyling by Luisa Abel. best sound. And Ludwig Göransson's score. He is one nomination away from tying the all-time Oscar nomination record.
“It's amazing,” said Thomas, who spoke with her husband in an interview hours after the nominations were announced. “Then we continued our routine of getting our 16-year-old out of bed, but there was a spring in our step.”
Although Nolan is considered one of the greatest writers of his time, he has never won an Academy Award, and his work has never won Best Picture. He was previously nominated for Best Director for Dunkirk. But Nolan's absence from cinema's biggest stages is often more notable than the accolades his films have garnered. After his The Dark Knight was overlooked for Best Picture in 2009, the Academy expanded the category beyond his five films.
This image released by Universal Pictures shows Christopher Nolan (center) with Oppenheimer stars Emily Blunt (left) and Cillian Murphy (right) on the set of the film on April 13, 2022. There is. Oppenheimer was nominated for 13 Oscars. (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures, via AP)
But this year's Oscars will be a coronation for 53-year-old director Nolan, a record-breaking three-hour blockbuster that has grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide and shattered conventional Hollywood logic. I might be heading there. On Tuesday, he and Thomas reflected on the film's Oscar success.
AP: The success of “Oppenheimer'' is a demonstration of what is possible for original films made at scale, in an industry that typically spends big budgets only on sequels and remakes. Are you thinking?
Nolan: I love Hollywood movies and grew up believing that studio filmmaking could do anything. It was incredibly thrilling to see audiences react to it this summer, and to get this kind of recognition from the Academy, I really don't know what to say. It certainly confirms our belief in what studio filmmaking is like.
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AP: Have you ever wondered why “Oppenheimer” resonated with you so much?
Nolan: Analyzing the zeitgeist and analyzing success is always difficult. We were really interested and excited to see young people in particular react to this part of history. I keep coming back to the unique nature of this story. I think this is one of America's great stories. It contains many important and dramatic moments in our history. It has a lot of appeal to the audience, and when you get a great group of actors like us and a great cast, you can make this realistic and emotionally accessible. As far as I can analyze its success, that's about it. Beyond that, sometimes you ride a wave, and that's a wonderful and unique thing.
Thomas: History is often from the ancient past and has little relevance to today. But I think what's unique about Oppenheimer's story is that everything this film deals with also relates directly to this moment. So I think that's what really resonated with the audience.
Nolan: Yes, that's a good point. When I first started working on this project, one of the kids mentioned nuclear weapons to me. People my age aren't really that worried. This was several years ago. With everything that has happened in the world since then, things have changed a lot. We came at the very time when people were starting to worry about this issue again and worry about the fate of the world. Oppenheimer's story is very relevant in this regard, not only about the threat of nuclear weapons, but also about the growing threat of AI and the possibilities it brings to our world.
AP: Your films have often been praised by the Academy, but neither of you did. won an oscar. Does it feel different this year?
Nolan: The breadth of awareness I woke up with this morning is unlike anything I've ever experienced before, and it's very thrilling. It's a very unique feeling for the Academy to evaluate different aspects of a film, from the acting to the film's technical achievements. I mean, I grew up watching the Academy Awards. It is the pinnacle of recognition from colleagues.
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AP: Do you consider “Oppenheimer” to be the culmination of your collaboration?
Thomas: It definitely feels like a movie made using everything we've learned together over the years. It all came together in this movie. But I hope that's not the climax. I hope I can make something again. (Laughs) We're already halfway through!
Nolan: We're just getting started! With every movie we try to build on what we learned in the previous movie.
AP: Do you have any big plans to celebrate tonight?
Thomas: Well, I'll probably have dinner with the kids. Some people are going back to college. We're going to have a family celebration, which I think is entirely appropriate given the nature of the film and the way we work.
