Christopher Nolan talks streaming, actors and “Oppenheimer”
“They’re just very, very intelligent people who have a sense of storytelling.”
During an hour-long interview with Post writer Jada Yuan – who wrote a behind the scenes book on the film “Oppenheimer” and of which grandmother Chien-Shiung Wu worked on the Manhattan Project — Nolan discussed how his actors took on the harrowing task of telling the story of Oppenheimer, the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike and whether his next project would be a John F. Kennedy biopic.
“I think the labor strife we just went through was a much-needed corrective to the streaming era because studios had changed the way they distributed their material without adjusting the deals accordingly. And so it had to happen,” he said, referring to recent actors’ and writers’ strikes.
“The main thing is to put principles in place. In the next round of negotiations, we can always rely on what was obtained contractually… So I think these are excellent agreements.”
With the popularity of streaming-only content, there is also growing concern about the fate of works that find themselves transported away from the only places where they can be viewed.
“There’s a danger these days that if things only exist in the streaming version, they’ll be removed, they’ll come and go,” said Nolan, who makes the news earlier in the week for joking that he put so much care into releasing “Oppenheimer” physically on Blu-ray to ensure that “no evil streaming service can come and steal it from you.”
In his conversation with Yuan, he explained: “It was a joke when I said it. But nothing is pleasant when it’s transcribed on the Internet,” before diving into the importance of owning media to preserve art.
The event, held Thursday evening at DC’s Rubell Museum, kicked off the Post’s Style Sessions — conversations with artists, tastemakers and creatives about how we live Today.
Listen to the full conversation with Christopher Nolan here:
