With ‘Oppenheimer,’ Christopher Nolan Puts Cillian Murphy Up Front

Like many directors, Christopher Nolan has a core group of people he likes to assemble for his movies, both on the screen and behind the scenes. For Nolan, one of those people is Cillian Murphy, who played supporting roles in five of Nolan’s films, starting with Batman Begins in 2005. But when Nolan decided he wanted to make a movie about the life and work of J. Robert Oppenheimer, he didn’t want to put Murphy in another supporting role — Nolan wanted to place him front and center, playing the title character in Oppenheimer. And, in a film with an ensemble cast featuring A-listers like Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Florence Pugh, Nolan says that Murphy is the glue that holds the whole thing together. (Click on the media bar below to hear Christopher Nolan)

Oppenheimer is now playing in theaters.