NEW DELHI: Author Kai Bird, who co-wrote the biography of J. Robert Oppenheim that inspired the Oscar-winning film, says he visited the set and enthusiastically went "Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr. Oppenheimer" when he met the actor. Met Cilia Murphy, who was dressed up. In character in baggy brown suit and hat.
The 72-year-old actor admitted that his visit to the sets of the film that won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor, was a bit boring.
The same scenes and dialogues were repeated and filmed from different angles "about 15 times", but then there was the encounter with Oppenheimer, considered the father of the atomic bomb in reel life.
“As he came up to me wearing a baggy brown suit that looked like it was from the 1940s, I was from New Mexico, a silver belt buckle, an Oppenheimer hat.I jokingly said 'Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr. Oppenheimer, I've been waiting to meet you for decades' and he laughed," Byrd said.
Bird, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 work with the late Marty Sherwin, hopes the massive success of Christopher Nolan's film will send a message to Hollywood and Bollywood filmmakers.
"I'm satisfied with the Oscars, but I hope it sends a message to Hollywood and Bollywood that audiences are eager to see filmmakers tell serious historical and biographical narratives. I'm very happy with the film itself. I think It is an artistic achievement." ," He said.
Oppenheimer was a chief scientist of the Manhattan Project, a code name for a US government research project formed to create nuclear weapons during World War II.
Bird and Sherwin were among the first in a long list of people whom Nolan, who also wrote the film's screenplay, thanked when receiving his first Oscar.
Sherwin, who died in 2021, worked on the book from 1980 until its publication in 2005. After much persuasion, Bird joined as his writing partner in 2000."Marty was determined and kept coming back. He knew I was looking for a new guy to write for... and I didn't have a job in mind. He said, 'If you don't come with me, M. The gravestone, my tombstone is going to read: 'He took it with him', he was very intelligent," Byrd recalled.
The blockbuster success of the film has rubbed off on readers of the book, which Bird said has been on the New York Times (NYT) bestseller list for six months.
The book is now available worldwide in several versions, including Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish."It's amazing, the book came out 18 years ago and now it's got a new life and a huge audience. When it came out it got very respectable reviews, I did modest sales, but it's never been on any bestseller list. No. But now because Nolan's movie it's on the NYT bestseller list," Bird said.
He said that there had been at least "three attempts" to adapt the book to film a dozen years before Nolan came to the stage.
Three parties wrote separate scripts and tried to get one of the studios to back the film or a bigger star to star in it.All proved unsuccessful, Bird said.
"In the year 2021, Nolan came suddenly... he read the book in March. H wrote the script over the next four-five months, and in September 2021 itself, H called me and said 'I have written the script. I have optioned him. I am here and making this film'', he recalled.
In Bird's view, the controversial intimate scene in the film, involving J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his lover Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) reading the Bhagavad Gita in bed together, might have been both "impossible" and "inappropriate". Were.Oppenheimer learned Sanskrit and is said to have been influenced by the Gita. The scene, which featured a line from Hindu holy scripture, led to protests in India.
"My wife said, 'It was unnecessary' (the sex scene). In the film he was trying to convey two things: convey Oppenheimer's interest in the Gita and Sanskrit, and convey his love for Tatlock. So maybe it It's unfair to conflate the two," Bird said.
The 72-year-old actor admitted that his visit to the sets of the film that won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor, was a bit boring.
The same scenes and dialogues were repeated and filmed from different angles "about 15 times", but then there was the encounter with Oppenheimer, considered the father of the atomic bomb in reel life.
“As he came up to me wearing a baggy brown suit that looked like it was from the 1940s, I was from New Mexico, a silver belt buckle, an Oppenheimer hat.I jokingly said 'Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr. Oppenheimer, I've been waiting to meet you for decades' and he laughed," Byrd said.
Bird, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 work with the late Marty Sherwin, hopes the massive success of Christopher Nolan's film will send a message to Hollywood and Bollywood filmmakers.
"I'm satisfied with the Oscars, but I hope it sends a message to Hollywood and Bollywood that audiences are eager to see filmmakers tell serious historical and biographical narratives. I'm very happy with the film itself. I think It is an artistic achievement." ," He said.
Oppenheimer was a chief scientist of the Manhattan Project, a code name for a US government research project formed to create nuclear weapons during World War II.
Bird and Sherwin were among the first in a long list of people whom Nolan, who also wrote the film's screenplay, thanked when receiving his first Oscar.
Sherwin, who died in 2021, worked on the book from 1980 until its publication in 2005. After much persuasion, Bird joined as his writing partner in 2000."Marty was determined and kept coming back. He knew I was looking for a new guy to write for... and I didn't have a job in mind. He said, 'If you don't come with me, M. The gravestone, my tombstone is going to read: 'He took it with him', he was very intelligent," Byrd recalled.
The blockbuster success of the film has rubbed off on readers of the book, which Bird said has been on the New York Times (NYT) bestseller list for six months.
The book is now available worldwide in several versions, including Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish."It's amazing, the book came out 18 years ago and now it's got a new life and a huge audience. When it came out it got very respectable reviews, I did modest sales, but it's never been on any bestseller list. No. But now because Nolan's movie it's on the NYT bestseller list," Bird said.
He said that there had been at least "three attempts" to adapt the book to film a dozen years before Nolan came to the stage.
Three parties wrote separate scripts and tried to get one of the studios to back the film or a bigger star to star in it.All proved unsuccessful, Bird said.
"In the year 2021, Nolan came suddenly... he read the book in March. H wrote the script over the next four-five months, and in September 2021 itself, H called me and said 'I have written the script. I have optioned him. I am here and making this film'', he recalled.
In Bird's view, the controversial intimate scene in the film, involving J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his lover Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) reading the Bhagavad Gita in bed together, might have been both "impossible" and "inappropriate". Were.Oppenheimer learned Sanskrit and is said to have been influenced by the Gita. The scene, which featured a line from Hindu holy scripture, led to protests in India.
"My wife said, 'It was unnecessary' (the sex scene). In the film he was trying to convey two things: convey Oppenheimer's interest in the Gita and Sanskrit, and convey his love for Tatlock. So maybe it It's unfair to conflate the two," Bird said.
