Christopher Nolan took the opportunity to cast his daughter in a cameo for Oppenheimer and the film’s director is opening up as to how that came about.
“We needed someone to do that small part of a somewhat experimental and spontaneous sequence,” Nolan told The Telegraph during a recent interview. “So it was wonderful to just have her sort of roll with it.”
Flora Nolan is credited on IMDB as “Burn Victim” for her work on Oppenheimer. The outlet describes the nameless character as a “young woman who appears to the title character in a hellish, conscience-pricking vision, in which the flesh is flayed from her face by a piercing white light.”
While talking about Flora’s role, Nolan noted that he didn’t want to “make me sound like Michael Powell on Peeping Tom.” Nolan was referencing the 1960 film that Powell directed where he cast his own nine-year-old son as the child version of the serial killer.
Nolan continued, “But yes, I mean, gosh, you’re not wrong. Truthfully, I try not to analyze my own intentions. But the point is that if you create the ultimate destructive power it will also destroy those who are near and dear to you. So I suppose this was my way of expressing that in what, to me, were the strongest possible terms.”
Flora is also previously credited as “Girl on Truck” in Nolan’s film Interstellar. She is currently a student at the New York University Tisch School of Arts.
