Emily Blunt is rumored to be the latest cast member to join Christopher Nolan’s next film, Oppenheimer, an eponymous biopic on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the lead scientist behind the Manhattan project and the creation of the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer will be Nolan’s eleventh feature film following his 2020 complex time-travel thriller, Tenet. The movie is set to release on July 23, 2023 and will be distributed by Universal Pictures.
Actor Cillian Murphy already confirmed to play Oppenheimer himself. Murphy and Blunt have recently appeared together in John Kransinki’s Covid-delayed horror sequel, A Quiet Place: Part II, which eventually grossed upwards of $190 million internationally. On the face of it, Oppenheimer seems to combine two recurrent interests for Nolan of recent years – that of science and history. Nolan produced scientifically accurate representations of black holes in Interstellar, wrangled with external quantum physics in Tenet and previously visited the Second World War era in Dunkirk.
Now, it has been revealed (via Deadline) that Blunt is in talks to feature in Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Reportedly, Blunt will take on the role of the scientist's wife, Katherine. At the time of writing, the casting of Blunt has not been officially confirmed by Universal or Blunt herself.
Judging by the title of the Pulitzer-prize winning book that Nolan's Oppenheimer film will be adapted from, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, it looks set to present the moral complexities that went with the creation of the atomic bomb. On the one hand, Oppenheimer can be heralded as a scientific genius who helped the allies win World War Two, while on the other, he can be seen as an icon of destruction who masterminded the creation of the world’s deadliest weapon and killed hundreds of thousands innocent civilians in Japan. Meanwhile, Katherine battled personal demons of her own, fighting with alcoholism and depression during various periods of her life while also inevitably being involved in the drama of her husband’s life.
It will be interesting to discover what sort of light Nolan sheds Oppenheimer’s story in, whether it is as scientific hero, a harbinger of death, or somewhere in-between. His portrayal of Katherine will also be of considerable interest as she was also a woman of great complexity. Nolan has been widely criticized in the past for his disinterested portrayals of female characters, so whether he demotes Katherine as simply the wife of Oppenheimer or presents her as her own autonomous will likely be a major topic of much discussion once it releases. If written with dimensionality, the character of Katherine could put Blunt in the conversation for a future Oscar nomination for Oppenheimer, particularly considering the Academy’s tendency towards biographical performances.
