Sure, Christopher Nolan is a big deal, but his upcoming Oppenheimer movie is attracting some major talent, even by his standards. THR has reported that Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, and Benny Safdie are the latest to sign on for Oppenheimer, joining a cast that already includes Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, and Emily Blunt. Damn!
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie has been described as an “epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.” Cillian Murphy will star as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who helped to develop the A-bomb during World War II. As for the rest of the cast, Florence Pugh will play Jean Tatlock, “a member of the Communist Party of the United States who has an off-and-on affair with Oppenheimer and was the cause of major security concerns for government officials” and Benny Safdie will play Edward Teller, “the Hungarian physicist who is known as the father of the hydrogen bomb and a member of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. research initiative that developed the first atomic bomb.” Rami Malek will play a fellow scientist, with Emily Blunt playing Oppenheimer’s Wife, Katherine; Matt Damon playing Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project; and Robert Downey Jr. playing Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.
The Oppenheimer movie will be written and directed by Christopher Nolan and Universal Pictures have already slated the film for a July 1, 2023 release. The project is based on American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Florence Pugh was recently seen in Black Widow as Yelena Belova and reprised the role for the Hawkeye series on Disney+. Rami Malek played the villainous Safin in No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s fifth and final James Bond movie, and Benny Safdie appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza.