‘Oppenheimer’ Production Designer Ruth De Jong On Recreating History With Director Christopher Nolan

Production designer Ruth De Jong boasts multiple acclaimed films in her extensive resume from several high profile directors. Among her recent award-winning collaborations include partnerships with such directors as Jordan Peele (Nope, Us), Manchester By the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan), and David Lynch (Twin Peaks: The Return). But it’s her designs for Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed historical epic blockbuster Oppenheimer that have critics and audiences buzzing about hugely deserved awards attention when the Oscar nominations roll around next January.

Whatever the future brings, De Jong remains extraordinary grateful for the experience, a deep collaboration with Nolan that afforded her months of careful research to plan for such an expansive project.

“What an incredible experience it was. From the moment I read the script to then spending about six to eight weeks together, we deeply discussed the production design of Oppenheimer in all aspects,” De Jong recalls. “He had such a clear and concise film in his in his mind, and I wanted to deliver that film. It was a very challenging film that we shot in 57 days with around 150 sets plus I don’t even know how many locations. There was no time to chill, but when you’re in collaboration with a group like that, it was just incredible.”

Telling the story of the Manhattan Project and the construction of the first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer revisits history through the perspective of its primary architect, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). According to De Jong, it was very clear from the script itself that this film would revisit these crucial events in American history by walking in Oppenheimer’s shoes. The film wouldn’t emerge as a detached, 3rd-person character study. Rather, the audience would live and breathe Oppenheimer’s life before, during, and after the Manhattan Project, and the production design would need to orient the audience within this world as completely as possible.

However, specific period authenticity wasn’t tops on Nolan’s wish list for the film’s production design. Instead, he worked with De Jong to make aspects of the film as timeless as possible. Throughout the film, the design team strived to pay homage to the era without filling the screen with period-specific items just to scream “period piece.” The goal was to populate the film with enough detail to make it feel grounded in the era without detracting from the actors and screenplay.

They did, however, strive to get the creation of the atomic bomb exactly right. That meant recreating the government-built town in Los Alamos where contributing scientists and their families lived during the project.

“First thing out of the gate, it had to be epic. You have to feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere. Chris and I settled on a location outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, that was sort of an untouched plateau. I think they call it the Tennessee Valley region. We had to put a pretty significant road to get the crew in and to build these sets, but it was worth it,” De Jong explained. “The one thing we knew we were up against is to go to the places and the locations that we needed to be epic enough for the IMAX and the 65mm. I would leave my hotel at 4 am, open setup until almost 7 am. Then, I would drive all the way down to where we were building the Trinity Tower and the Trinity Basecamp and then end my day back in Santa Fe where we had Washington D.C. location. It was that way for about six weeks, and it was very tiring. But when you’re in it, you’re just kind of in it.”

Speaking of the Trinity Tower, if you’re thinking that enormous location came to life via the visual effects team, then think again. It’s famously known that Nolan wanted a little digital intervention as possible. Nearly everything built for the film was built practically, or in-camera, including the giant tower from which the atomic bomb was first dropped.

Ironically, despite the many high profile locations across the 3-hour film, one of the most problematic to realize was President Harry S. Truman’s (Gary Oldman) Oval Office. The original intent was to leverage a replica within the Nixon Presidential Library to avoid building an entire Oval Office set for only a few moments of screen time. Unfortunately, seven days before they were scheduled to shoot the scene, the team lost access to the location. Because Oldman’s schedule was locked, there wasn’t time to entertain a build out of the set.

Fortunately, an answer came from a very unexpected place.

“We had six days, and I called my supervising art director. Early on, we were looking at pulling an Oval Office set out of being flat packed. This was the Veep Oval Office set. So, we booked a stage at Universal,” De Jong laughed, “and we put the biggest crew we could get together. We worked everyone 24 hours for 5 days straight. When Chris and Emma (Thomas, producer) walked on set, they were like, ‘It smells like wet paint’.” I said it sure is. Don’t touch the walls!”

Oppenheimer is now available on 4K blu-ray and via video on demand.