Daily Archives: November 8, 2014

After recasting the superhero genre with a dark realism in the "Dark Knight" Batman trilogy and dissecting dream manipulation in "Inception," director Christopher Nolan is tackling the final frontier.

"Interstellar," out in U.S. theaters on Friday, has taken Nolan into what he described as the furthest exploration of space in film. The movie balances an intimate father-daughter relationship within the backdrop of an intergalactic journey to save mankind.

Nolan, 44, talked to Reuters about casting Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey as his leading man, the challenges of constructing "Interstellar" and the effect of "Gravity."

Film review:Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar' is compelling but too cheesy

Q: What does Matthew McConaughey embody as Cooper?

A: He has the right stuff. Cooper, he's a pilot, and the great thing about the American iconic figure of the pilot, the Chuck Yeager, (is that) there's a little of the cowboy about him. And I think Matthew embodies that wonderful, earthy sense of an everyman who has great integrity and is extremely competent, somebody you trust to guide you through this story and take you through this journey.

Q: What was your biggest challenge in balancing an intimate family story with an intergalactic journey?

A: The biggest challenge in that respect is creating a reality on set so that the actors, who are very much the human element of that - they're the intimate, emotional element of that - so that they can actually connect with the larger scale of the film, they can see it, touch it, taste it.

So we tried to build our sets not so much like sets, more like simulators, so the actors could look out of the windows and see the real views of what would be going on there, they could experience the ship shaking and reacting as they flew it.

Q: Why did you choose to set 'Interstellar' in a future that bears close resemblance to the present world?

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Interview: Christopher Nolan talks on his 'Interstellar' challenge and tackling final frontier post 'Dark Knight'

1. Nolan Used Full Scale and Miniature Models for his Spacecrafts, Not Special Effects The connecting theme of Nolan's work is his devotion to creating movies that feel real. In Interstellar, the director carried that notion into the design process of the space station and shuttles used in the film."For me, the starting point of the movie is a familiar Earth. We didn't put a lot of futurism in the designs," says Nolan. "I wanted to carry that tone into the spacecraft, not jump too far in the future." Nolan and his production designer, Nathan Crowley, constructed detailed models, like in Star Wars, for some exteriors and they even built full scale versions of the ships for landing sequences. Along with Star Wars, Nolan has cited 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, and Blade Runner as inspirations.

The shuttle and space station used in Interstellar. (Paramount Pictures)

4. Nolan Created a Virtual Reality for His Actors

Nolan also created the film's visual effects in advance of shooting so he could project those images for the actors. When they looked outside their spacecrafts, they saw the dark of space instead of a green screen. Anne Hathaway, who plays astronaut Amelia Brand, told USA Today, "...When you see us looking out the window at a celestial body, there is a celestial body projected onto a screen outside a practical window. I don't know of any other filmmaker who can inspire people to do that."

Nolan and McConaughey talk Interstellar on set. (Paramount Pictures)5. Hoyte Van Hoytema For the first time in his career, Nolan used a Director of Photography not named Wally Pfister (who was busy directing Transcendence). Enter Hoyte van Hoytema, the eye behind Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In, as well as The Fighter and Her. In short, Van Hoytema's work is awe-inspiring. The shots of the celestial bodies (especially Saturn) will take you there, and the cinematographer did it with old fashioned ingenuity. Under the careful eye of Nolan, who used more IMAX shots in this movie than any of his others, Van Hoytema modified an existing IMAX cam to make it handheld for certain interiors. He also installed an IMAX cam in the nose cone of a Learjet for some of the space sequences.

Nolan on the set of Interstellar. (Paramount Pictures)

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