Oppenheimer star Matt Damon told his wife that he would take a break from acting… unless Christopher Nolan came calling.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is absolutely packed with stars, including Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., and more. This leads me to believe that there’s only one response when the director comes calling — YES!
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Matt Damon revealed that he had actually promised his wife that he would take some time off from acting, but made sure to include an exemption for any Christopher Nolan project.
“This is going to sound made up, but it’s actually true,” Matt Damon said. “I had — not to get too personal — negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off. I had been in Interstellar, and then Chris put me on ice for a couple of movies, so I wasn’t in the rotation, but I actually negotiated in couples therapy — this is a true story — the one caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called. This is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything, because he never tells you. He just calls you out of the blue. And so, it was a moment in my household.” You can imagine how that conversation went: “Honey, you’re not going to believe this but…“
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin, the movie stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. In addition to Murphy, the film also stars 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 rest of the cast includes Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Rami Maleck, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Angarano, Dane DeHaan, David Krumholtz, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Modine, and many more. The film has also received an R-rating, making it Christopher Nolan’s first R-rated movie in over twenty years.
Oppenheimer will hit theaters on July 21st, and given the extremely positive reaction the film has received, it’s a safe bet that many of you are looking forward to watching it for the first time.