Casey Affleck has now added his name to the seemingly never-ending cast list of director Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Because the biopic apparently did not already have enough A-listers attached, Casey Affleck, the star of such titles as Manchester by the Sea and Nolan’s own Interstellar, has now joined proceedings. The actor was spotted alongside Oppenheimer lead Cillian Murphy on set (via Daily Mail).
Casey Affleck’s role in Oppenheimer is unknown at this time, but he can be seen wearing military attire in the set images. Cillian Murphy has also been sighted in the images, with the actor hugely excited to be taking the lead in a Christopher Nolan for the first time after playing several side characters for the popular director. Casey Affleck is best known for roles in the likes of the Ocean’s franchise, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Gone Baby Gone, A Ghost Story, and The Old Man & the Gun. The actor was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actor for his powerful, deeply affecting portrayal of a grief-stricken man in the 2016 drama Manchester by the Sea.
Written and directed by seminal auteur Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer will be based on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning book “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The story will follow Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who contributed to the Manhattan Project that led to the invention of the atomic bomb, exploring the man’s moral struggle and the inner crisis he faced after seeing what his invention could do.
Oppenheimer is Set to Feature the Most Star-Studded Ensemble Casts of All Time
Casey Affleck joins what is arguably the most star-studded cast list of all time. Led by Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer is set to feature an ensemble cast that includes Emily Blunt as Katherine Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, as well as Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Matthew Modine, Alden Ehrenreich, Kenneth Branagh, David Dastmalchian, Jason Clarke, Olivia Thirlby, Josh Peck, David Krumholtz, Scott Grimes, Alex Wolff, and many, many more.
If that were not already enough to have you seeing stars, Nolan will even bring in The Dark Knight star Gary Oldman for a cameo in Oppenheimer. "Chris Nolan is working on a new film about Oppenheimer, and [I’m there for] one day,” Oldman recently revealed. “One scene. A page-and-a-half. I work on that at some point I think a day and night. But for the foreseeable future, I’m hoping to continue working on the Slow Horses series and we’ll see if people watch it and they like it and then maybe the people upstairs at Apple give us another crack at the whip."
Oppenheimer is scheduled to be released in the United States on July 21, 2023. The movie will see Christopher Nolan move away from long-time collaborator Warner Bros., released Oppenheimer instead with Universal Pictures.