In Oppenheimerthe hit biopic from writer-director Christopher Nolan, Kitty Oppenheimer’s character is upstaged twice.
Kitty, played by Emily Bluntis the woman behind the man: although she is also a scientist, she is the marginalized wife of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the American physicist who led the development of the atomic weapon during World War II in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Oppenheimer It is his film, so much so that much of the script is written in the first person (“I OPEN my eyes- I JUMP out of bed- I RUSH to get dressed”).
And furthermore, although Kitty was Robert’s wife (they had two children), she was not his first love nor, as the film suggests, his most intense. Psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) first dated Robert for three years, and the two continued to see each other even after the Oppenheimers married. Halfway through the movie, Kitty finds her husband freaking out over his death.
“How heartbreaking it must have been for her,” Blunt said, “to see him in that state for another woman.”
All of this is to say that Blunt, the London-born actress known for films like The Devil Wears Prada, Mary Poppins Returns y A silent placecould have disappeared in this three-hour epic, which was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus.
But Blunt’s is one of the most memorable performances in a film packed with movie stars and acclaimed actors. Blunt, winner of a Screen Actors Guild Award for A silent place in 2019, is now a likely contender for her first Academy Award nomination. In a video interview last month, she talked about how she was empathetically portraying a hapless, but not exactly likable, character. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
-Christopher Nolan asked the actors to know the real lives of their characters. What traits of Kitty Oppenheimer influenced your performance?
-We all read American Prometheus. On the flight to Albuquerque, I could see other people trying to swallow the book. The wives of Los Alamos described her as one of the most evil people they had ever met. The men were interested in her, but a little intimidated. Kitty didn’t make small talk. She only talked about important things.
A difficult scene to act
-Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer temporarily gave their little son to friends, the Chevaliers, because they were very overwhelmed. Was that scene difficult to act?
-I have daughters of 9 and 7 years old and I love being a mother. I have always loved boys. So it was quite difficult to be so cold to those little ones on set. Kitty clearly has a trauma with that, a trauma she didn’t have a name for at the time. She has fallen into drink. I tried to empathize with this woman who had a phenomenal brain, who had to go through contortions to be a good housewife. It must have been torture for someone like her, who was so wild, so brilliant, that she should never have been a mother and that she clearly had a major depression after the birth of her baby.
-How do you combine empathy with fidelity to the character, potentially at the expense of people liking you?
-For me, it is never important if someone likes me. I just have to understand the person. She could play that quiet desperation of the character, the restlessness and that uninhibited style that he had, which was so fiery and interesting. And yet, she was a very stabilizing force for him. She was his most energetic protector. I think she had quite unusual qualities, in addition to others that undermine her as a person. She’s rough and imperfect, but I identified with the idea of someone deteriorating at the ironing board, when she should have dedicated herself to intellectual tasks that would have excited her.
-Was there any other scene that made you understand Kitty?
-Do you remember the scene under the rock, with Cillian? He babbles incoherently about his lover. When I read the scene, I thought, “Wow, that’s interesting, it’s almost like I can’t see that he’s talking to his wife.” And I slapped him. Chris said, “Slap him.” That’s not in the movie, but I hit that famous cheekbone too many times. Perhaps what I interpreted most was his attempt to save face. As if to say: “Control yourself, people here depend on you.” But it’s more: “I depend on you.”
-How did the unconventional, first-person character of the script influence your approach to the role?
-It was clear to all of us that it is a single point of view. Oppenheimer’s character walks across the screen and drags you inside his head, and there are some much wilder and more colorful characters around him. We were there to emotionally bring out different aspects of that character.
-I interviewed Nolan shortly before the premiere of “Oppenheimer” regarding the IMAX 70 mm format.
-It must have been nonsense for him. His passion for cinema is contagious.
-What was it like filming with the IMAX cameras?
-They brought them in a kind of giant refrigerator. And they’re loud: they sound like Chewbacca coming in. There’s something liberating about it, because you know they’re going to catch every little flicker and nuance on anyone’s face. But they are noisy and at first you wonder, “How am I going to function?” The thing is the sobriety of Chris’s sets, the concentration and absence of chaos, the fact that there was never a moment of bombast when the IMAX entered.
-How would you compare Nolan’s “quiet” sets with others you’ve been on?
-In some sets you move by instinct and experience. That can work both ways: in a comedy or something that’s freer, sometimes it’s great for things to be a little more chaotic. But with Chris, his preparation matters, so that when you appear, you don’t feel pressured as an actor. I’m sure the technicians were horizontal every day at 7 pm.
The New York Times and Clarín
Translation: Elisa Carnelli