Christopher Nolan 'has always been fascinated by Oppenheimer'

Christopher Nolan has "always been interested" in J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The 52-year-old director's new film centres on the theoretical physicist, who is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project, and Nolan has confessed to being fascinated by him.

He shared: "I've always been interested in Oppenheimer as a figure, and as an ambiguous figure in history.

"He is a long-standing fascination of mine. I think that it's an extraordinary moment in history."

The acclaimed director also thinks that Oppenheimer's story is perfectly suited to cinema.

The 'Oppenheimer' director told Total Film magazine: "Oppenheimer was there at the moment the world irreversibly changed. And cinema is perfect for taking an audience to a point in time and space it could never access otherwise.

"So, for me, the excitement of Oppenheimer's story is to be able to give the audience this extraordinary experience that he lived through, to really see and experience these events from his point of view. And the story is told very much from his point of view. It's a very subjectively told story."

Cillian Murphy heads the cast as the theoretical physicist, and he previously admitted that he found the responsibility to be both "immense" and "terrifying".

Speaking about the challenge, he explained: "It does feel immense and it feels terrifying but if I felt it was easy, I wouldn’t be interested. I do get nervous, anxious and insecure, but then you go, ‘F*** it. I’ve been doing it for 25 years and I have done it before. So just keep going.'"