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"Oppenheimer" UK Premiere - Arrivals© GettyImages

Matt Damon negotiated with wife Luciana Barroso his ‘Oppenheimer’ role

Damon and his wife had agreed he’d taken an acting break with one exception: the break was off if Christopher Nolan called.


Maria Loreto
Senior Writer
JULY 19, 2023 11:37 AM EDT

Matt Damon is a big fan of Christopher Nolan’s work. The actor, who’d previously worked with the legendary director in the film “Interstellar,” revealed that he treasured the experience so much that he included it in an acting break deal he’d made with his wife while attending couple’s counseling.

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In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Damon got personal about his relationship to Nolan and his relationship with his wife Luciana Barroso. "This is going to sound made up, but it's actually true," Damon said while speaking with his “Oppenheimer” costars Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, and Robert Downey Jr. “I had — not to get too personal — negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off. I had been in ‘Interstellar,’ and then Chris put me on ice for a couple of movies, so I wasn’t in the rotation, but I actually negotiated in couples therapy ­— this is a true story — the one caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called. This is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything, because he never tells you. He just calls you out of the blue. And so, it was a moment in my household.”

Damon plays the character of Groves, a general that oversaw the Manhattan Project, which was the initiative responsible for developing the atomic weapons that the film is centered about.

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“Oppenheimer” is based on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Murphy, and the complex relationship with the atomic bomb he helped create. The screenplay was written by Nolan and shows us Oppenheimer’s side of the story. “We have to get the facts right. We have to be guided by history. But we’re trying to give the audience an experience. We’re trying to really entertain and engage in a meaningful way,” said Nolan to CNN.