Interstellar: Christopher Nolan started a lucrative side business selling corn grown on set

A cornfield was grown especially for filming

(Warner Bros)

Interstellar may have had a pretty sizable budget of $165 million, but this didn't stop director Christopher Nolan trying to save money where possible.

The production team had to grow a corn field especially for the scenes on Matthew McConaughey's character's farm, and after filming was complete sold off a "pretty good crop".

Explaining how he sought advice from Man of Steel director Zack Snyder on cinematic cornfields, Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter: "Luckily, Zack had grown a bunch of corn, so I said, 'How much can you really grow practically?'

"And they had done a couple hundred acres [for Man of Steel], so we looked into it; we found that where we wanted to build our farmhouse really close to the mountains [outside] Calgary. In the end, we got a pretty good crop, and we actually made money on this."

This isn't any old corn remember, this is corn that has had Matthew McConaughey stare at it while musing the philosophical implications of humanity's migration to a new planet.

The actor, who lived in a trailer near the home of his character while shooting in Calgary, Alberta, said that during his initial three-hour meeting with Nolan the pair didn't even talk about the film.

"I came away knowing nothing else about the film," he said. "We talked about who we are as 43-year-old men, talked about who we are as [fathers], talked about our kids. We talked about some other films and work and just got really a sense of each other. And so when I walked out, I had a little bit of, 'OK, what was that?' I think he wanted to see who I was."