Florence Pugh had a small but memorable role in Oppenheimer, as she played Jean Tatlock, the real-life lover of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The Don’t Worry Darling actress revealed in a recent interview with MTV UK that the film’s director, Christopher Nolan, apologized to her about the size of the role.
“I didn’t really know what was going on or what it was that was being made,” she said. “Except I knew that Chris really, really wanted me to know that it wasn’t a very big role, and he understands if I don’t want to come near it. And I was like, ‘Doesn’t matter. Even if I’m a coffee maker at a café in the back of the room, let’s do it.’”
Still, Nolan wanted her to know that she could back out if she wanted to. “I remember he apologized by the size of the role. I was like, ‘Please don’t apologize,’” she said, recalling when they met in New York while she was filming A Good Person. “And then he said, ‘We’ll send you the script, and honestly, you just read it and decide if it’s like … I completely understand the sizing thing.’ And I remember that evening when I got the script being like, ‘I don’t need to … I know I’m going to do it.’”
