Of the various things Christopher Nolan likes to film—explosions, things moving backwards, shockingly angular men—human sexuality tends to rank pretty low. That might be about to change, though, as both Nolan and (very angular) star Cillian Murphy have confirmed that Nolan’s upcoming film Oppenheimer is going to dive pretty thoroughly into its subject’s sex life, including, per a recent Guardian interview with Murphy, “prolonged full nudity for Murphy and Florence Pugh.” That’s in addition to what are being described as “complicated” scenes between Murphy and his A Quiet Place Pt. II co-star Emily Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty; we have no earthly clue what “complicated” means in this circumstance, but Murphy described them as “pretty heavy” and then said he was sworn to secrecy about anything else, so… yeah.
Nolan, for his own part, seemed pretty pleased at introducing romance and sex more thoroughly into his usual bag of tricks—a necessity, given the real Robert Oppenheimer’s complicated love life. (He and Pugh’s character, Jean Tatlock, had a long on-and-off relationship that also first introduced him to Communist teachings, and he began dating Kitty when she was still married to another man.) Nolan recently told Wired that the relationship material in Oppenheimer “is as strong as I’ve ever done,” and while that still isn’t saying all that much, romance-wise—Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard’s brain ghost in Inception, Christian Bale and Katie Holmes/Maggie Gyllenhaal in the Dark Knight movies, the Scarlett Johansson character in The Prestige, and that’s kind of it—it’ll still be interesting to see him apply his undeniable eye for a striking image to something a bit more intimate this time around.
Oppenheimer explodes into theaters on July 21, 11-mile IMAX print, R-rating, and all.