14 DAY TRIAL // In the first week of November, one of the most buzzed about movies of the year, which also happens to be considered a favorite for the Best Picture category at next year’s Oscar awards, Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar,” opens in theaters worldwide.
Because Nolan has become, in recent years, one of the most respected and popular directors in Hollywood, partly because of his beautiful take on Batman’s story in “The Dark Knight” trilogy, partly because of the mind-bending “Inception” and partly because he’s professional and passionate about making movies down to his core, he gets to promote a new project like few others can boast of doing.
So Nolan, together with his stellar cast from “Interstellar,” talked to The Hollywood Reporter about this new, very bold film that promises to be an immersive experience – more so than any other movie Nolan has put his name to.
Hathaway, McConaughey, Chastain tell anecdotes
This week’s issue of the trade publication also brings a joint photospread with the director and his 3 big leads, Anne Hathaway, Matthew McConaughey, and Jessica Chastain, together with the actual print interview and video chats.
You will find one of these chats embedded below, at the end of this post.
As for the written interview, it focuses mostly on the message of the film, the science behind it, and the challenges of shooting it. Nolan, unlike most directors today, is notoriously against CGI, so he makes a point of shooting all the scenes he can on actual sets, even if that implies planting entire fields of corn for his characters to drive through, as was the case here.
Or, you know, traveling to Iceland to shoot for months on location, and moving there a spaceship he had built specifically for these scenes. This is also where Hathaway almost got frostbite in her toes, when her spacesuit started leaking and she stayed for a longer stretch in the freezing water.
That’s just one of the funny anecdotes the actors share of their experience of working with Nolan. In Anne’s case, she didn’t have much choice but to make it through the end of the working day despite the pain because, as Nolan says, it’s not like she could go anywhere. They were “in the vast expanse of water — vehicles adrift and stuff —, so there wasn't any quick solution.”
The science of “Interstellar”
The interview also delves deeper into the science of the film. The script was initially written by Christopher’s brother Jonathan, with director Steven Spielberg in mind. But Chris met with one of the world’s renowned theoretical physicists, Kip Thorne, some years back, and he realized he could make the movie he’d always wanted.
With help from Thorne, he rewrote the script, and after 2 whole years, he had the story ready: that of a couple of astronauts who go through a wormhole into a different galaxy, where they must search for a planet that could substitute for Earth, which is running out of natural resources.
It tackles themes like the passage of time, space, and space travel, and it’s all meant to be as accurate as possible. As we’ve seen from the trailers, it also tackles the theme of family and personal sacrifice for a higher goal, with McConaughey saying that he was very comfortable acting a very emotional scene, in which said personal sacrifice is made.
Nolan doesn’t really like selling his movies
Again unlike most of today’s directors, Nolan really doesn’t like the media attention all that much. He’s perfectly comfortable when he’s working and holding meetings, but when it comes to that whole process that follows the wrap of a movie, he admits he finds himself a bit not at ease.
“I'm not being glib,” he tells THR. “I actually find the process of bringing the film out to the audience the most difficult, definitely. All of the other challenges — you have time, you have various resources. You have things you can throw yourself into. As you come to the end of the project, you run out of things you can tweak and change.”
However, when it comes to promoting the film, you really have no other option but to do it, and if you mess up, you know for a fact you won’t be getting a pass in the media.
The full interview is available at The Hollywood Reporter. It’s a must-read for all Nolan fans and for all the supporters of the members of this A-list cast.