Working On Oppenheimer Gave Florence Pugh A Career First Experience

Christopher Nolan is an incredibly technical filmmaker. He tends to make sci-fi movies, but often with heady time-travel concepts that take a long time to explain. Even his historical epic "Dunkirk" takes place over three separate time frames, with one plotline covering the span of one week, one covering the span of one day, and one covering the span of one hour. In "Inception," characters use a sci-fi device to insert their disembodied consciousnesses into the dreams of others. Inside dreams, however, time moves differently, and one can travel for hours while asleep before waking up only minutes later. "Interstellar" has multiple time-shifting conceits, and don't get me started on the baffling time-reversed physics of "Tenet."

In order to pull off such towering pieces of conceptual architecture, Nolan must possess a very technical, engineering-forward mind. His sense of structure is impeccable, and some would say to the detriment of his characters. Similarly, some of Nolan's more emotional moments can seem slight or underserved in the face of his ambitious sci-fi concepts. And, in order to keep those technicals in place, Nolan must be the kind of director who keeps responsibilities stringently delegated on his sets. One might imagine him to be professional and focused at all times. 

Nolan's ultra-professional directing style was confirmed by actress Florence Pugh who plays Jean Tatlock, the real-life American Communist advocate, in the new hit biopic "Oppenheimer." In an April interview with Collider, Pugh recalled her days on the "Oppenheimer" set, and just how well-managed everything was. Pugh has already starred in multiple high-profile films since her debut in the 2014 film "The Falling," but she describes Nolan's directing style as professional in a way she had never seen before.

It should be noted that "Oppenheimer" is Nolan's least fantastical film. He does tell the story in a flashback/flash-forward fashion, but there's no trickery and there's no sci-fi. The first half of the film is about J. Robert Oppenheimer's quest to build an atomic bomb as he traverses his personal relationships and ambitions. The second half of the film sees Oppenheimer facing his massive moral failing in constructing a device that can murder millions in an instant. Even without the labyrinthine sci-fi conceits, though, Nolan remained in control of his film to a T. Pugh recalled the tone on set, and loved what she saw. Pugh said: 

"Working with Christopher Nolan was quite possibly one of the most thrilling experiences in a different way, partly because he works with professionals. He is a professional. But his dedication to the craft of filmmaking and old filmmaking is just magical to watch. To just watch every single crew member on that set work so hard for him, to get his approval. And not like in a weird way, but like everybody knows who they're working for and everybody's proud of being there." 

The actress asses that everyone is proud of what they were doing, and that Nolan fomented a sense of aspiration on set. "Everybody has so much pride in their own work," Pugh said. "...[E]verybody is constantly trying to be better the next day. And I've never seen that feeling on set before."

In the past 25 years, the 52-year-old Nolan has made 13 feature films. He often re-casts actors he likes working with — Cillian Murphy has appeared in multiple films of his — so there's every reason to believe Pugh will have the opportunity to work with Nolan again.