After bringing us his divisive mind-bending time travel film ‘Tenet,’ Christopher Nolan returns with another summer blockbuster. His latest, ‘Oppenheimer‘ stars Cillian Murphy as the titular scientist tasked with saving humanity. But in doing so, he ends up causing mass deaths and destruction, leaving behind a polarizing legacy. ‘Oppenheimer’ finally brings a post-Avengers Robert Downey Jr. back to the forefront of another certified blockbuster.
Robert Downey Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a crucial figure in the military and political history of the United States of America. As the founder of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, he had a complicated rivalry with American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. He was at the front and center of the hearings against J. Robert Oppenheimer’s supposedly questionable role in Project Manhattan.
Related: “Now I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds”: The Story Behind Oppenheimer’s Infamous Quote
Robert Downey Jr. Plays Lewis Strauss In Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’
Robert Downey Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, the adversary to Cillian Murphy’s physicist protagonist. Strauss was a significant figure in the development of nuclear weapons, the nuclear energy policy of the United States, and nuclear power in the United States. But before that, he started as an unpaid assistant to Herbert Hoover and soon became Hoover’s private secretary and confidant.
Lewis Strauss worked as an investment banker at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. During World War II, Strauss served as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and rose to the rank of rear admiral. President Truman named him as one of the first five Commissioners. Oppenheimer firmly believed in the power of the hydrogen bomb and wanted to channel nuclear energy to create weapons. Meanwhile, Strauss was a proponent of thermonuclear weapons and a doctrine of deterrence.
During his tenure, Strauss often clashed with the physicist Robert J. Oppenheimer. In 1953, Strauss requested that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover put his nemesis under surveillance. Strauss led the Oppenheimer Security Hearing in 1954, where a committee investigated Oppenheimer’s role in the Manhattan Project. In the end, the committee stripped of his security clearance.
In Case You Missed: Why Was Cillian Murphy Confident About Christopher Nolan Directing ‘Oppenheimer’?
Christopher Nolan On Working With Robert Downey Jr.
The ‘Inception‘ filmmaker has been a long-time fan of Robert Downey Jr., claiming him one of the best actors working today. Since his MCU departure, Downey hasn’t graced our screen like we’d want him to. But with ‘Oppenheimer,’ Downey gets to collaborate with one of the best filmmakers in the world on a meaty dramatic role.
In this conversation with GamesRadar, Nolan waxed lyrical about Downey Jr, “We all know that Robert Downey Jr. is one of the great movie stars. It’s so easy to forget that he’s also one of the greatest actors of all time. Watching him lose himself in that performance, and completely lose himself in a character in this way, was just an incredible reminder of just what an amazing actor he is.”
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