Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan was “appropriately nervous” about his first sex scenes

Last Updated on July 24, 2023

Christopher Nolan has pulled off a lot of amazing things in his movies, but Oppenheimer features something he’s never attempted before on the big screen — a sex scene.

J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) has a steamy romance with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) before his marriage to Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt). Although Christopher Nolan didn’t shy away from the passion between the two characters, he admitted to Insider that he was “appropriately nervous” about filming his first sex scene for Oppenheimer. “Any time you’re challenging yourself to work in areas you haven’t worked in before, you should be appropriately nervous and appropriately careful and planned and prepared,” Nolan said.

Christopher Nolan was adamant that this aspect of Oppenheimer was included in the movie. “When you look at Oppenheimer’s life and you look at his story, that aspect of his life, the aspect of his sexuality, his way with women, the charm that he exuded, it’s an essential part of his story,” Nolan said. “It felt very important to understand their relationship and to really see inside it and understand what made it tick without being coy or allusive about it, but to try to be intimate, to try and be in there with him and fully understand the relationship that was so important to him.” As Tatlock was a Communist, the affair had “enormous ramifications” for Oppenheimer later in life.

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.

Oppenheimer will hit theaters on July 21st, so be sure to check out a review from our own Eric Walkuski right here.