Alec Nevala-Lee: Do you think that the film’s picture of Oppenheimer is accurate?
Richard Rhodes: One time I asked [the physicist] Bob Serber if my portrait of Oppenheimer was anywhere close to the real human being. And Serber, who had a very dry wit, said, “It’s the least wrong of all those I’ve seen.”
And I think that applies here, because the difficult edges to Oppenheimer were, to some degree, sanded off. But there have been several Oppenheimers in past versions. The BBC did a series with Sam Waterston. He was wonderful, but he was much too nice. Then when the next version [the 2009 PBS docudrama The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer] came around, [David Strathairn] played Oppenheimer as a hand-wringing neurotic, which really pissed me off when I watched it. You could not possibly have someone who did what Oppenheimer did in his life who was just sitting around shaking all the time with anxiety.
Nevala-Lee: Most viewers are probably encountering figures such as Lewis Strauss (the government official who orchestrated the notorious hearing that revoked Oppenheimer’s security clearance, played by Robert Downey Jr. in a towering performance) and Leslie Groves (the military head of the atomic-weapons program, played by Matt Damon) for the first time.
Rhodes: Yeah, I think Strauss, if anything, was depicted somewhat more pleasantly than he really was. I think he was even more nasty. And I was really surprised by Matt Damon, who did a damn good job. In fact, it gave me a different sort of perspective on Groves. I had pictured him as stuffier than he was depicted here, and I think this is probably closer to the truth. Groves was really a superb leader, and also anxious and insecure around the scientists. Which was a funny combination, because he drove them to get the job done anyway.
Nevala-Lee: Was there anything else about the movie that surprised you?
Rhodes: Mostly minor things. I’d read about the arrival of the shock wave after the light [from the Trinity test], but my God—when you see it in IMAX, it really hits you; it resonates in your chest. We were just knocked back in our chairs. I wish [Edward] Teller [Oppenheimer’s nemesis in the debate over the hydrogen bomb] had been a little different. I spent an interesting 30 minutes with Teller and had some sense of what he was like. That guy [Benny Safdie] was a little too oily, not quite as sinister as Teller really was.
