One of the few things known about Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb biography Oppenheimer since it was first announced in September as his next picture was that it would have an ensemble cast. The casting of Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife in October, and the casting of both Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr. in supporting parts in November, followed that first narrative. Florence Pugh (Midsommar, Black Widow), Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody, No Time to Die), and Benny Safdie (Bohemian Rhapsody, No Time to Die) have joined the cast this month (Licorice Pizza).

Jean Tatlock, a doctor and Communist Party member with whom Oppenheimer had a romantic relationship, will be played by Pugh. Safdie has been recruited as Edward Teller, a Hungarian physicist known as “the father of the hydrogen bomb,” and Rami Malek has been cast as an unnamed scientist. Following a competitive bidding war with rival studios, Universal Pictures was awarded the distribution rights to Oppenheimer, and the film will be released on July 21, 2023 (around the same time as many of Nolan’s earlier films).