Warning: this article contains spoilers for Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan has revealed that one of the most shocking lines in Oppenheimer was improvised.
Speaking to The New York Times, Nolan shared that James Remar, who plays U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson in the film, came up with the idea for one of the most harrowing and shocking lines to be delivered in the movie.
The scene involves Stimson and other government officials meet with J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) to discuss where they should drop the atomic bombs in Japan.
In one shocking line, Stimson rules out Kyoto as a target because he and his wife had honeymooned there. The off-handed way in which he put his own interests above the fate of thousands of humans caused for a stomach-churning scene.
“Remar kept talking to me about how he learned that Stimson and his wife had honeymooned in Kyoto. And that was one of the reasons that Stimson took Kyoto off the list to be bombed,” Nolan said to the New York Times.
“I had him crossing the city off the list because of its cultural significance, but I’m like, just add that. It’s a fantastically exciting moment where no one in the room knows how to react.”
Nolan went on to explain: “Each actor was coming to the table with research about what their real-life counterpart had been. They had tons of homework to do. They had a great resource with American Prometheus [the Oppenheimer biography on which the film is based]. They then did their own research and what it meant for me, which isn’t something I’d ever really been able to do in the past.”
Oppenheimer scored a glowing five-star review from NME upon its release, with Paul Bradshaw writing: “Not just the definitive account of the man behind the atom bomb, Oppenheimer is a monumental achievement in grown-up filmmaking. For years, Nolan has been perfecting the art of the serious blockbuster – crafting smart, finely-tuned multiplex epics that demand attention; that can’t be watched anywhere other than in a cinema, uninterrupted, without distractions. But this, somehow, feels bigger.”