Oppenheimer: The Cigarette Detail You Probably Missed

Christopher Nolan's movies are known for their attention to detail. The teams that the director assembles for massive projects, like "Dunkirk" and "Interstellar," manage to execute cinematic excellence every time. Sure, the occasional star or two slip their attention, but they are clearly capable of executing movies on a high level — even down to the detail of a box of cigarettes.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Nolan's prop master, Guillaume Delouche, shared the extremes to which the production crew went to make sure everything was perfect. The publication explains that, for starters, Delouce stamped each cigarette with the Chesterfield logo. This was the only brand that Oppenheimer would smoke. The interview adds that Delouce went even further by creating period-specific cigarette packs for each era of the film.

"Oppenheimer" is split into three timelines, all of which are layered on top of one another throughout the three-hour movie. This means there are years and sometimes decades between scenes — and the behind-the-scenes team took that into account. They ensured that Oppenheimer actor Cillian Murphy had precisely the right kind of cigarettes to show off in every single scene. As far as the actual smoking of the cigarettes (something that Oppenheimer did ad nauseam throughout his life), the crew helped Murphy emulate the activity without hurting himself by creating herbal cigarettes with a menthol flavor. This allowed the actor to smoke all day without the fear of getting sick.