The past and present of Los Alamos came together to make Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan’s newest film, Oppenheimer, grossed over $82 million domestically over its opening weekend. It is perhaps Nolan’s most significant project yet: a biopic of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, also known as the “father of the atomic bomb.” To preserve Oppenheimer’s historical accuracy, Nolan and his film crew shot at the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton and Los Alamos, two places where Oppenheimer worked. Because the film was shot near the real-life campus of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the opportunity arose for LANL researchers to join the film as extras. These interactions gave the scientists a more personal experience with LANL’s rich legacy and created a deeper level of detail for a movie that critics have called “a supersize masterpiece.”

Bringing in the extras

LANL’s inception began hastily, as the demands of World War II forced the US government to rush to create a facility for nuclear weapons development. As Oppenheimer shows, it was renowned engineer and science advocate Vannevar Bush who led the charge by working with several military personnel to birth a top-secret nuclear effort called Project Y. As Project Y developed into what we now know as the Manhattan Project in the early 1940s, Oppenheimer was appointed the first director of LANL. In the middle of the New Mexican desert, Oppenheimer and a team of brilliant scientists worked on developing the world’s deadliest weapon. To stay true to the story, Nolan shot various scenes at Ghost Ranch (the site of Georgia O'Keeffe's former studio), about an hour outside Los Alamos. Nolan also worked extensively with various researchers at LANL to better understand the institution’s birth during World War II. “It obviously tells the story of the birth of the lab in a very dramatic way,” explained LANL Director Thom Mason, who was not an extra in the film. “It’s great to see it told, and it certainly has generated a lot of interest in the lab and a lot of interest in northern New Mexico, which is a beautiful location. And that [beauty] comes across as well.” While most scientists would no doubt feel uncomfortable with a film crew poking about in their laboratories, a handful of LANL researchers were interested in participating in the film. And like most projects in Hollywood, the recruitment process was secretive and roundabout, a clear parallel to the actual Manhattan Project, which had its own culture of secrecy. “A friend of mine at the time was a labs liaison for the Manhattan Project National Historical Park,” elaborated Richard “Mouser” Williams, a LANL technical staff member who was an extra in Oppenheimer. “So he was the one who gave the director [Nolan] a tour around the relevant sites at LANL. And he made me aware that this [being an extra] is a thing that could be done. He got me hooked up with the company to be an extra.” To get his part, Williams had to submit a photo and show up on set. Once he got the call, he took two days off for filming and drove to Ghost Ranch. “There's a scene where Oppenheimer is addressing the townspeople after the bomb at Ghost Ranch,” explained Williams, “which is a little unsettling to see because I'm in the audience for that. So there's a wide shot of 400 people appointed as extras, and I'm one of them.” While Williams enjoyed having a small role in the film, he said it was hard to find himself when he watched Oppenheimer in a theater. “I was lucky in that they asked if anyone would be willing to carry a kid on their shoulders,” added Williams. “And there were four or five kids on standby for this. So I figured out I’d make it easier to find where I was in this giant shot, so I had a kid on my shoulders. This made it more fun to see me in the film at the theater.” Williams also mentioned that several of his fellow labmates were involved in these scenes, and he spent most of his time viewing the film trying to find them.

A face in the crowd

For other LANL researchers, like Paul Barclay, the invitation to be an extra was much less roundabout. “I think someone in the lab sent an email saying that they were looking for extras for Oppenheimer,” Barclay said. “So me and my one friend went somewhere in Santa Fe where there was just a bunch of people. They were taking pictures of us and asked us to pose like a scientist—they basically just took our photo, and then we left. Eventually, I got an email or a call, asking if I was interested in being an extra.” Unlike Williams, Barclay was on set for eight days and shot multiple scenes as an extra, including pretending to be a townsperson of the newly erected Los Alamos. “One of the final days [of shooting], they had the Trinity site,” said Barclay. “So after the explosion in the movie, a bunch of people gather around Oppenheimer and lift him up on their shoulders. I'm in that crowd—one of the scientists wearing the goggles.” With this connection to the film, Barclay felt more appreciative of Nolan’s dedication to historical accuracy. “I know when I was talking to some of the set designers that they tried to be historically accurate with the buildings and things like that, where they looked at photos of the older buildings from the '40s and tried to recreate the buildings as best they could while still making them quickly,” added Barclay. Being an Oppenheimer extra allowed both researchers to learn more about their workplace firsthand, as they seemed to be taken back in time to its origins. Having scientists on set also seems to have influenced Nolan’s approach to filming. In a Variety interview, Nolan said, “You’ve been on sets where you’ve got a lot of extras around, and they’re more or less thinking about lunch. These guys were thinking about the geopolitical implications of nuclear arms and knew a lot about it. It actually was a great reminder every day of: We have to be really on our game, we have to be faithful to the history here, and really know what we’re up to.”

Sharing the LANL legacy

While LANL researchers like Williams and Barclay were learning more about the origin of their institute, Oppenheimer doesn’t cover what happened to LANL after the Manhattan Project, leaving the viewer to do their own research. “The movie is very much about the man and not the site or the institution,” said Williams. “I think the portrayal [of LANL] was a good one. But it was tangential.” Since the end of the Manhattan Project, LANL’s footprint has grown significantly. “After the Second World War, there was a period of uncertainty as to what the future would be,” Mason told Ars. “There were big debates about things like civilian control of atomic energy and atomic weapons; eventually, when the dust settled, it led to the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission.” During these debates, Los Alamos rebranded itself into the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL), only to be renamed LANL later. Regardless of its name, it continued to draw the brightest scientific minds to its doors as a “mecca” for nuclear physics. “In the '40s, they brought in not only Oppenheimer but also a bunch of different people like von Neumann and people like that to work on the atomic bomb,” said Barclay. “They still have a bunch of great scientists here.” Today, Los Alamos boasts the highest number of PhDs per capita of any US city. With the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission, the US Department of Energy used LANL as a template for the creation of several other national labs. “You saw a number of new institutions emerge as a consequence of the Manhattan Project,” added Mason. “So, the National Labs, as we know them today, many of them had their seeds planted directly, like at Oak Ridge National Lab or Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, which, of course, was instrumental in getting things going in the first place. Also, some new institutions are created, like Argonne National Lab in Chicago.” While these new labs sprouted up in the decades following the Manhattan Project, LANL’s focus on national security was retained, but the emphasis shifted. “Prior to the Trinity test, it was not a deterrence-focused mission here, obviously,” Williams said. “So, we're no longer in this position of trying to figure out if it can be done and getting it done at whatever cost. We're now in this stockpile stewardship and a deterrence-focused mission that is slightly different but involves the same skill sets.” In addition to researching nuclear weapons, LANL now focuses on nuclear energy and other applications. “Today, we still do a lot of work relevant to bringing the very best science and national security,” added Mason. “We have responsibility for a significant chunk of the nuclear deterrent. We also work in nonproliferation and arms control, which is the other side of that coin, if you will, as well as fundamental research and energy-related R&D in terms of clean energy, nuclear energy, renewables, that sort of thing.” Thanks to the new attention brought by Oppenheimer, Mason and other LANL researchers hope that early-career physicists and engineers will consider joining LANL, forming the newest generation of brilliant minds working at this esteemed institute. Kenna Hughes-Castleberry is the science communicator at JILA (a joint physics research institute between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder) and a freelance science journalist. Her main writing focuses are quantum physics, quantum technology, deep technology, social media, and the diversity of people in these fields, particularly women and people from minority ethnic and racial groups. Follow her on LinkedIn or visit her website.