From left: actress Jessica Chastain, director Chrisotpher Nolan, actor Matthew McConaughey, and actress Anne Hathaway.
Interstellar is an audacious two-hour-and-47-minute drama that cost $165 million to make and is expected to contend in the best picture Oscar race.
Read THR's full Interstellar roundtable here.
“As I was wrapping my head around the science of the film, I was incredibly moved by the human component of the film, and definitely it coincided with my spiritual beliefs,” says Chastain.
Nolan follows Alfred Hitchcock in always wearing a suit to work — but this one hides a flask of Earl Grey tea he always carries with him.
Crewmembers hand-sculpted a 46-foot-long spaceship at 80 percent scale. The production was faced with the unique problem of having to transport 10,000-pound spaceships to Iceland
When meeting with Nolan to discuss the movie, McConaughey recalls there being "not one word about the film, not what it was about."
"We talked about who we are as 43-year-old men, talked about who we are as [fathers], talked about our kids. We talked about some other films and work and just got really a sense of each other. And so when I walked out, I had a little bit of, 'OK, what was that?' I think he wanted to see who I was."
In designing the movie’s three aircrafts, Nolan’s crew watched hours of Imax documentaries on the International Space Station and looked at the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
When asked if there would be an environmental doomsday like the one seen in the movie, Chastain offered: "I'm definitely an optimist. … It seems like I've definitely noticed that the public is starting to grow wise. We are damaging the environment, and the Earth, and it's definitely changed a lot in the last 10 years. I'm hoping we continue on that course [of recognition]."
Nolan is known for being steadfast in his use of celluloid film, as opposed to converting to the more economical digital filmmaking.
"I love film and will continue to use it. What it has is a particular and unique quality. It's the thing that got me doing this in the first place. And makes me keep wanting to do it."
"When I'm looking at a script, to me it's like an outline. Every scene leads to the next emotional journey of the character, and if the character doesn't evolve at some point in that scene as it's supposed to, that scene won't really make sense," said Chastain when asked about the emotional complexity of Interstellar's script.
While in Iceland, Hathaway's space suit sprung a leak when she was filming in freezing water.
"I wasn't sure if I could feel my toes, or they started to tingle, and then I was feeling all sorts of weird flashes and things were getting a little hazy around the edges, and that's when I turned to our first [assistant director], and I said, 'Hey, I don't know that much about hypothermia, but what are the symptoms?' And I explained what was going on, and he said, 'Oh! Like, right now?' And I'm like, 'Yeah!' And so then he went over to Chris, and Chris was like, 'OK — let's roll, let's roll, let's roll right now!' And we were done shortly thereafter."
"I tried to understand the science in the movie but I don't remember anything about what I talked to Kip about except at the end, when we talked about playing the trumpet. Because he played the trumpet and I used to play the trumpet," said Hathaway of talking to Kip Thorne, a renowned theoretical physicist who received an executive producer credit on the film.
When THR asked the Interstellar actor what he would miss most if he did have to leave Earth to find another habitable planet, he said: "I like the obstacles here on the ground. They're tangible. I have a conception of them. I have a sense of the mortality here. I don't know where that period or that comma is down the line, but I have a sense [of] the way to navigate this place. And it still gives me great wonder. It's still an incredible mystery, and the path gives me a different buzz each time."