Christopher Nolan left a touching note inside Cillian Murphy’s script for Oppenheimer.
The Irish star played the titular role of US physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer - the man dubbed the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ - in the smash hit film that’s received wide critical acclaim.
The flick has been nominated for a whopping 13 Oscars including the coveted best picture award, best director for Nolan, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr and a nomination for Murphy as best actor.
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Murphy has already scooped a Golden Globe for the role and was quick to praise director Nolan in his acceptance speech.
“I knew the first time I walked on a Chris Nolan set it was different,” he said.
“I could tell by the level of vigour, focus, the level of dedication and the complete lack of seating options for actors.”
He then paid tribute to their collaboration of ‘20 years and six fecking pictures’.
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And it turns out that the feelings of admiration are mutual - in a recent interview with 60 Minutes, Murphy opened up about the first time he saw the Oppenheimer script after Nolan handed him a copy.
He explained: “When Chris came to see me in Dublin - he called me on the phone and then we talked about this - and then he brought this over to me in Dublin, he came from America.
“He gave it to me and went out and I read it in his hotel room.”
When asked how he reacted after reading the script, somewhat nonchalantly, Murphy replied: “I said, ‘that’s a rather good script’.”
However, the eagle-eyed folks among us may have spotted a sweet handwritten note taped onto the front page from Nolan that read: “Dearest Cillian. Finally, a chance to see you lead… Love, Chris.”
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How lovely is that, eh?
Elsewhere in the interview, Murphy let slip that Nolan has a ‘tradition’ of presenting his scripts using an ‘unhelpful’ colour scheme to avoid any leaks.
Nolan also includes the name of the person the script belongs to on each page, so that if attempts to photocopy pages did happen he would know who is to blame.
He explained: “It’s always printed on red paper with black ink - unhelpfully - I guess, to prevent against photocopying, but I don’t know who photocopies in 2024. He’s always had a tradition of printing on red paper with black ink.
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“Then it has my name, kind of watermarked on each page.”
He’s part director, part detective, isn’t he?
Topics: Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy, Christopher Nolan, Oscars, Golden Globes
Claire Reid