Oppenheimer star Matt Damon recalls how he told his wife he would take a break from acting unless Christopher Nolan calls to recruit him.
In recent years, he has appeared in Air (which he also produced), The Last Duel (which he produced and co-wrote), and Stillwater, as well as cameos in Thor: Love and Thunder and No Sudden Move. However, Damon had assured his wife, Luciana, that he would take some time off before Nolan contacted to offer him the role of General Leslie Groves in his historical drama-thriller Oppenheimer.
This is going to sound made up, but it’s actually true,” Damon reveals during the conversation at EW’s Around the Table. “I had — not to get too personal — negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off. I had been in Interstellar, and then Chris put me on ice for a couple of movies, so I wasn’t in the rotation, but I actually negotiated in couples therapy — this is a true story — the one caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called. This is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything, because he never tells you. He just calls you out of the blue. And so, it was a moment in my household.”
As a result, Damon appears in the film as Groves, the commander who led the Manhattan Project, where the United States’ atomic bombs were developed, with co-stars Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt as the physicist’s wife Kitty, and Robert Downey Jr. as Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss.
Oppenheimer opens in theatres on July 21.
