Robert Downey Jr. on Why He Chose ‘Oppenheimer’ After MCU (Exclusive)
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Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are teaming up for Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” the true story about the man — played by Cillian Murphy — who spearheaded the development of the atomic bomb.
“Extra’s” Tommy DiDario spoke with the duo about the film and their off-screen friendship. Plus, Matt made a sweet confession about BFF Ben Affleck that Emily jokingly called “cringe.”
Tommy asked Emily and Matt, “You’ve been friends for a while, even neighbors. What makes each other a good friend?”
Blunt shared, “Well, I’ll bring up chips and dips sometimes… It’s good at Super Bowl parties.”
Matt added, “I keep your tequila, your type of tequila that you guys like.”
Emily, getting serious, went on, “It’s really important to me to have friends who I can lean on, who understand the business in every way and understand the predicaments or compromises that you might be in. And I lean on Matt, John [Krasinski] and I both do, and it’s the best. It’s like a secret language you get to have with each other. The fact that I get to have it with him in his slippers is even more cozy. It’s the best.”
Damon agreed, saying, “It’s a two-way street. I’m always bouncing ideas off them, you know, I respect them both enormously. It’s nice to be able to just take the elevator down to their apartment and run ideas by them.”
Emily teased, as she reached toward Damon, “You know what makes me such a good friend? I’m gonna fix your eyebrow. That’s a good friend.”
Damon insisted, “There’s no fixing my eyebrow. I don’t know… I hit 50 and they started going everywhere.”
Emily told him, “Yeah, very expressive brows now at 50.”
Discussing the movie, Tommy asked Matt if he was familiar with his character General Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, before filming.
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“No, not really,” he said. “It was really interesting because there was such tension between the military and the scientists. The military is obsessed with compartmentalization and need to know. Scientists take the entirely opposite approach which is share as much information… ‘What do you know? Let’s build on each other’s work and knowledge.’ And so there was this kind of constant tension, it was really interesting to kind of learn about and then play.”
Emily plays Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty, who is fiery and feisty and not the stereotypical 1950s housewife.
Blunt said, “She just was a nonconformist. And like… he’s her fourth husband when she’s 29, when they meet and that sort of speaks to the wildness in her. And she was pretty uncompromising about how she wanted to live her life. But once they were in Los Alamos and the isolation and loneliness of that, you know, however much they were each other’s confidantes, it would inevitably lead to the decay of this woman who was probably meant for more intellectual endeavors than having kids.”
DiDario asked, ”Oppenheimer created the atomic bomb. If there’s something you could create or invent, what would it be?”
Matt said, “The atomic bomb blocker… That would be nice to have.”
Emily added, “Yours was deep. I was about to do a play on slippers, and I can’t think of anything now. Now that you’ve kind of dropped the mic.”
Tommy went on, “If there is someone you’d want to have a brilliant, inspiring conversation with who do you turn to?”
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Blunt said, “I would love to have an inspiring conversation with Jon Stewart. I would love to talk Jon Stewart for a month solid. But not sleeping. Just a month solid of talking to him.”
Damon told her, laughing, “It might get weird after a couple weeks.”
Emily insisted, “It’ll be fun. He can do anything.”
Matt went on, “I’m gonna be a little lame. I’ll say Ben Affleck. He’s one of my favorite people to talk to.”
Blunt teased, “Oh, God. Cringe…”
Matt doubled down, “He’s a conversational prize fighter.”
Emily agreed, “It’s true. He could be a professional dinner guest. That’s how entertaining and smart he is.”
Damon added, “Very funny.”
Matt and his bestie are working on more movies together after releasing “Air” this year.
Damon dished, “We’ve got some great scripts. We actually just made a movie that we finished a couple months ago that Cillian’s in. It’s called ‘Small Things Like These.’ It’s a phenomenal, beautiful movie and another great performance from Cillian. So we’re excited about that, that’ll come out next year.
“Oppenheimer” hits theaters July 21.
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