Cillian Murphy's Oppenheimer Haircut Took Five Hours, Thanks To A Picky Christopher Nolan
Stories from the sets of notoriously particular filmmaker Christopher Nolan are always entertaining, and the new book "Unleashing Oppenheimer: Inside Christopher Nolan's Explosive Atomic-Age Thriller" is full of them. Jada Yuan's behind-the-scenes look at the making of the blockbuster historical drama features an assortment of surprising tidbits, including one about, believe it or not, an excruciatingly long haircut.
Strange as it sounds, fans of Cillian Murphy are no stranger to stories about the actor's hair. When Murphy worked on "Peaky Blinders," he said he was "alarmed by" the signature closely shaved undercut style his character Tommy Shelby sported in the show, noting he was "contractually obligated" to stick with the style. Couple an actor who understandably has opinions on his own hair with a director who's famous for his at times excruciating attention to detail, and apparently you get a five-hour haircut. According to Yuan, Murphy started the production with longer hair, and as shooting was set to begin, the schedule included a bit of time for his haircut before the group "shipped out" for their New Mexico shoot.
'Chris supervised the cutting of every individual hair follicle'
Instead, the quick cut before they hit the road apparently turned into an arduous process. As hair department lead Jaime Leigh McIntosh put it in the book, "This is going to make it sound like l'm an incredibly terrible hairstylist when I tell you that Friday morning turned into a five-hour haircut." According to Murphy, there was a clear reason the cut went on so long: "I got called into Universal at 9 a.m. to do the haircut and I assumed it would be an hour, and we finished the haircut at 2 p.m.," he recalled, adding, "I swear, Chris supervised the cutting of every individual hair follicle on my head."
Lest we start any rumors that Murphy and Nolan had a haircut-related falling-out, it's worth noting that the actor saw the filmmaker's level of involvement as a sign of his creative genius. "There's no decision made that Chris isn't all over," he shared in an interview for "Unleashing Oppenheimer. "Sock color, watch, hair — everything. It's amazing. That's why he is the genius that he is. But that was the longest haircut of my life." Producer Emma Thomas, who apparently witnessed the whole thing, calls the haircut "legendary," saying it came down to "a game of millimeters."
The whole production was scheduled around Murphy's haircuts
According to McIntosh, the cut took so long because Murphy and Nolan spent ages debating the best length — a disagreement that apparently bled over into production itself. "There wouldn't be a day that Chris wouldn't go over to Cillian and pat his hair down a little bit," she recalled, admitting, "I think Chris always thought it looked too long." The obsession apparently went even further, as Nolan told The New York Times (via Entertainment Weekly) that he actually scheduled the entire shoot around Murphy's haircut. "I'm very allergic to wigs in movies," Nolan said. "I really wanted the film to not have any obvious artifice when it came to the way characters presented themselves."
McIntosh says the five-hour cut was definitely a first for her. Nolan, meanwhile, apparently remained hung up on the haircut long after production had wrapped. "Last time I spoke to Chris [about the hair], he said, 'I've just gotten over it,'" Murphy told Yuan. "He'd just accepted it, and he'd been editing for seven months at that point."
If you want to judge Cillian Murphy's haircut for yourself, "Oppenheimer" is on digital and home video beginning November 21, 2023. "Unleashing Oppenheimer: Inside Christopher Nolan's Explosive Atomic-Age Thriller" is now available wherever books are sold.