Emily Blunt reveals Cillian Murphy skipped Oppenheimer cast dinners due to ‘monumental’ pressure of lead role

Irish actor leads drama about the creation of the atomic bomb

Emily Blunt has spoken about the “monumental” toll Oppenheimer’s lead role took on her co-star, Cillian Murphy.

The Irish actor, 47, stars as “the father of the atomic bomb”, Robert J Oppenheimer, in Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated biographical war drama about the devastating effects of the World War II invention.

Blunt, 40, plays Oppenheimer’s wife, biologist Kitty Oppenheimer. Matt Damon, 52, portrays Lt Leslie Groves Jr, the director of the top-secret Manhattan Project responsible for developing the atomic bomb.

Speaking to People in a new group interview, Blunt shared fond memories of filming the movie in the New Mexico desert.

“We were all in the same hotel,” she said. “We only had each other. Me and Matt were roommates and were like, ‘Let’s go to have dinner.’”

Comparing the environment to “summer camp”, Blunt, however, acknowledged that Murphy’s experience wasn’t so carefree.

“The sheer volume of what he had to take on and shoulder is so monumental,” the A Quiet Place star said. “Of course he didn’t want to come and have dinner with us.”

Cillian Murphy and Matt Damon in ‘Oppenheimer’ (Universal Pictures)

“He couldn’t. His brain was just too full,” Damon added.

Jumping into clarify, Murphy said: “You know that when you have those big roles, that responsibility, you feel it’s kind of overwhelming.”

Last month, Nolan said Oppenheimer had left early viewers “devastated”.

“They can’t speak. I mean, there’s an element of fear that’s there in the history and there in the underpinnings,” the British-American director said.

He remembered showing it to a fellow filmmaker who described it as “kind of a horror movie”.

“I don’t disagree,” he added, admitting that he had felt “relieved to be finished” with the project.

For the film, Nolan, who has become known for shunning CGI in favour of pulling off practical stunts, recreated a nuclear weapon detonation in New Mexico without using any special effects.

Oppenheimer debuts in cinemas on 21 July, the same day as Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

Eager fans are already planning on purchasing tickets to see both films back-to-back. The viral trend, dubbed Barbenheimer, has become so popular that even Murphy, Margot Robbie and Tom Cruise have publicly supported it.