Florence Pugh and Rami Malek are the latest to join the star-studded cast of “Oppenheimer,” the next film from director Christopher Nolan, individuals with knowledge told TheWrap.
Pugh is set to join Cillian Murphy in the title role as the father of the Atomic Bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Pugh and Malek will also star alongside Emily Blunt, who was reported to be in talks to join the film along with Robert Downey and Matt Damon.
Pugh is meant to play Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist and physician who had a romantic relationship with Oppenheimer and was placed under surveillance by the FBI because of her association with the Communist party. Malek will portray a scientist in the film. And THR is reporting that Benny Safdie is also newly joining the cast and will play Edward Teller, a Hungarian physicist known as the father of the hydrogen bomb.
“Oppenheimer” is set at Universal Pictures and Nolan’s Syncopy. The film already has a release date in theaters on July 21, 2023.
Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. During wartime he was the head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and was known as the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the “Manhattan Project” that first developed nuclear weapons for World War II. He also supervised the Trinity Test, where the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated in New Mexico.
Universal also announced that the film will be shot in IMAX 65mm and 65mm large-format film print and will begin production in early 2022.
Florence Pugh most recently starred in “Black Widow” earlier this summer, and she’ll next be seen in Olivia Wilde’s film “Don’t Worry Darling” opening next fall.
Rami Malek, an Oscar winner for playing Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” most recently starred as the villain in “No Time to Die.” He’s next starring in David O. Russell’s untitled film.
Pugh is represented by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and UK’s Curtis Brown Group. Malek is represented by WME and Brillstein.
THR first reported the news.