Christopher Nolan movies are always events.
Larger-than-life, action-packed, ideas-driven, and (mostly) original, they’re created to be big-screen spectacles that awe mass audiences and drive hefty returns. For Nolan to say that his latest, Tenet, a palindromic global spy thriller starring John David Washington, is his most ambitious is no small thing. Add the fact that it’s the first major Hollywood film in the COVID-era to open in US cinemas in almost six months and you can understand why even “event film” feels too small for Tenet.
In the best of times releasing a film is exciting and tense. But now?
“This is a very heightened experience for all of us,” Nolan said.
It is a film that has been brewing in Nolan’s mind, in some ways, for decades. It started with an image of a bullet being sucked back into the gun. He toyed with the symbolic concept in Memento, but always wanted to make it more concrete. Over the next 20 years, Nolan and his producer and wife Emma Thomas would see their films amass nearly $4.8 billion at the box office. And with each new one, they challenged themselves to go further.
On less CGI and more action sequences
With a starry ensemble including Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, and, naturally, Michael Caine, Tenet takes audiences to Tallinn, Estonia, Italy’s Amalfi Coast, England, Oslo, Denmark, Mumbai, and Southern California’s Mojave Desert as Washington’s character, The Protagonist, tries to save the world. Seven international locations is a massive undertaking for any film, but in each one there was a big action set piece to accomplish.
“I think back to where we were even 10 years ago and one or two of the set pieces in Tenet could have probably been the climax of one of those earlier movies,” Thomas laughed.
To give a sense of its scale, consider the 747 jumbo jet crash sequence. Everyone assumed at the beginning that the grandiose concept would be accomplished with computer graphics and miniatures.
“But as we looked into it, the team became convinced that the most efficient way to do it, even from a financial point of view, the sensible way to do it was to buy a 747 and crash it,” Nolan said. “It sounds bizarre to say sensible, but it actually wound up getting us what we wanted on screen at a reasonable cost.”
There is very little CG in the film at all, which Nolan is particularly proud of. His cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema would often hoist the massive IMAX camera on his shoulder and shoot the actors and stunt performers, including Washington and Pattinson bungee-jumping up the side of a building in Mumbai.
Part of the reason Nolan can push the action is that he relies on teams he’s used before. For the water sequences, Nolan called on a marine unit he used in Dunkirk. For the car chases, he brought back the man who flipped the Joker truck in The Dark Knight.
“You want to feel a little overwhelmed,” Nolan said. “And you want a team around you who can pull off what you’re asking.”
Thomas also noted that Nolan pushes the narrative more than he has before. Tenet challenges audiences to think about concepts like inversion and entropy. He said it does for the spy genre what Inception did for the heist genre.
If that’s a little heady to process, it’s OK. One of his characters advises The Protagonist not to try to understand it, but to feel it. It’s what Nolan recommends too.
On billing Tenet as an entertaining prospect
“The film is intended as an entertainment. It’s a thrill ride, first and foremost,” Nolan said. “You really want them to just sit back, enjoy the ride. It’s a spy story. It’s a familiar genre. So there are plenty of ways in for the audience to just have a great time at the movies. If there’s stuff beyond that that people want to kind of puzzle, whether that resonates or, you know, lingers on in the mind once you’ve seen the film, hopefully, that’s a bonus.”
Thomas is still discovering new nuances even after seeing it, “more times than I choose to count.” While editing and finishing the film, they watched it from beginning to end every Friday to check that any changes made worked.
“The more you come to understand the way things are working in the film, the more you see,” she said.
The only way to do so for the foreseeable future is on the big screen. And after months of uncertainty, Tenet is actually opening in theatres. Warner Bros. started its roll out internationally to promising returns this weekend and in limited screenings in the US, where theatres are open, before rolling out wider Thursday.
On casting John David Washington as The Protagonist in Tenet
Nolan only casts movie stars as his leading men. From Leonardo DiCaprio and Hugh Jackman to Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey, his actors are larger-than-life, capital “S” stars.
So it was more than a little exciting for John David Washington when Nolan hand-picked him to anchor his most ambitious film to date, Tenet, as a glamorous and cool spy known only as The Protagonist. The 36-year-old may be the eldest son of another capital “S” star, Denzel Washington, but the lineage is hardly a guarantee in Hollywood at this level. Besides, he’s only recently gotten started. He spent his 20s in a different career: professional football.
Technically, Washington started acting when he was 7, in a small role alongside his father in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, and again a few years later in Devil in a Blue Dress.
Just over five years ago, he started quietly auditioning for projects on his own, and landed the role of Ricky Jerret in HBO’s Ballers. But it wasn’t until 2018 that he broke out in a big way, starring in Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.
Washington might have Lee to thank for Tenet too. The director invited Nolan to the premiere of BlacKkKlansman at the Cannes Film Festival, and the charismatic newcomer made an impression.
“I try not to have specific actors in mind when I’m writing because it would limit the character,” Nolan said. “(But) seeing John David on screen, seeing how Spike had been able to open up the film to the audience through this character and through the way John David draws the audience in, it was very hard for me to get him out of my head after that when I was writing the script. He kept intruding.”
Nolan arranged a meeting with Washington, found they shared a “common creative language,” and soon enough they were embarking on what would be an arduous, six-month, seven-country shoot that would push Washington to his physical limits. Among the challenges were learning how to fight backwards and bungee-jump up a building in Mumbai (or at least the first 20 feet of it before the stunt team took over).
“The heights thing was really tough,” Washington laughed. “But once I got over it, I felt very confident the rest of the film. No problem.”
They decided early on that Washington’s protagonist would be a different kind of spy than we’re used to seeing.
“These characters are often portrayed with a lot of cynicism,” Nolan said. “I just felt he could bring a generosity of spirit to the character, who is somebody who cares about what he is doing, cares about the people around him.”
On Nolan's approach to an actor's process
Washington found in his writer-director a surprisingly supportive collaborator who was just as concerned about the acting as he was the massive set pieces.
“Chris was very accommodating to the actor’s process,” Washington said. “There are some days where it felt like it had an indie movie quality to it. We were concentrating so much on why we’re here and the motivations and the performance. .. He would say words like, ‘Just take it for a spin.’ I love that. I love hearing that. Falling flat on your face wasn’t scary because of the environment he set.”
Despite the stress and the physical and mental tolls of leading a $200 million film, Washington was unflappable. Those who work with him compliment his positivity.
“He’s a very generous person and a very warm presence on set,” Nolan said. “That counts for a lot when you’re in the long haul.
That warmth is also part of the reason his character works, according to producer Emma Thomas.
“John David really does bring the audience along with him,” she said. “He does this incredible thing where he’s incredibly cool and incredibly fun to watch and at the same time somehow relatable. It’s not an off-putting cool. It’s a cool that pulls you in.”
Washington on film's success
Washington is humbled by his relatively quick and massive success so far, working with two of Hollywood’s most exciting directors in just a few years.
“I’m just grateful and thank God every day for the opportunity to work, to be in this industry, to be able to create with my betters and learn,” Washington said.
And while he won’t get the big red-carpet premiere that would be standard in pre-pandemic times, he was able to screen the movie with his extended family in a safe, socially-distanced way.
“I remember my uncle shouting out after one of the fight sequences, like, ‘OK, John David!’ which in uncle language means, ‘You’re doing good,’” Washington beamed. “And at the end, they cheered like we just won the Super Bowl.”
On returning to theatres
Washington said submitting again to the big screen was a “great escape.”
“You do forget about everything for those two and a half hours,” Washington said. “You forget about what’s happening.”
Nolan is “very pleased” with Warner Bros’ innovative release plan that is allowing for a slow, patient and safe rollout. He also said it’s “completely understandable and completely fine” if some audiences aren’t yet ready to rush back to the theatre. The $200 million picture will likely be playing for a long time as the entertainment industry finds its footing again.
Not only does the slow roll out remind him of seeing movies as a kid, when he could see Star Wars in Ohio at his grandmother’s in the summer, and then again when it opened in England at Christmas time, but it also might be more gratifying than headlines about record opening weekends.
“From an emotional point of view, it’s become tougher and tougher for filmmakers who spent years and years working on something and, even in success, it’s done in the culture within three weeks,” he said. “I think in some ways for the people who’ve made the film, it might actually feel more complete when all is said and done.”
(With inputs from The Associated Press)
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