Christopher Nolan has revealed that Al Pacino once turned down a directing note on set, insisting to the filmmaker that he’d “already done that”.
The acclaimed director – who is preparing to release his new biopic Oppenheimer starring Cillian Murphy – recalled filming 2002 thriller Insomnia with Pacino.
“I had gone up to Pacino after a series of takes and given him a note on what I wanted,” he told The Los Angeles Times.
“He told me, ‘I’ve already done that. You can’t see it to the eye, but I’ve done it on the dailies.’ I looked for it and I was like, ‘Oh, my God,’ because there it was.”
![Al Pacino](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Al-Pacino-main-new.jpg)
Nolan added: “Great film actors can do that, and that’s what I had with Cillian.”
Elaborating on Murphy’s challenging role of playing J. Robert Oppenheimer, Nolan explained: “He was so conscious of his iconography, very theatrical and self-aware. It’s too simple to say he was a dandy, but he knew the power of creating an iconic physical image for himself.”
Murphy recently shared that he was “desperate” to play a lead role for director Nolan, having previously played supporting roles in five of the director’s films; Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk and Inception.
![Christopher Nolan movies](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Christopher_Nolan.jpg)
Speaking to Associated Press, Murphy said: “I have always said publicly and privately to Chris, that if I’m available and you want me to be in a movie, I’m there. I don’t really care about the size of the part.
“But deep down, secretly, I was desperate to play a lead for him.”
He added: “We have this long-standing understanding and trust and shorthand and respect. It felt like the right time to take on a bigger responsibility. And it just so happened that it was a huge one.”
![Cillian Murphy in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2022_cillianmurphy_oppenheimer_universalpictures_2000x1270.jpg)
Back in May, Nolan reflected on the decision not to cast Cillian Murphy as Batman in The Dark Knight trilogy.
“It was clear to me from the beginning that I wasn’t Batman material,” Murphy told Entertainment Weekly in a discussion with the two film stars.
“When we had our first conversation I think both of us knew that you weren’t going to wind up playing Batman,” the director told Murphy. “But I really wanted to get on set with you, I wanted to get you on film.”
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