“Sometimes you catch a wave”

NEW YORK — Christopher Nolan was still sleeping when his film “Oppenheimer” received a leading 13 Oscar nominations on Tuesday. Emma Thomas, Nolan’s wife and producing partner, provoked him after receiving a flurry of congratulatory messages on her phone.

“Don’t take this as jadedness,” Nolan told The Associated Press with a laugh. “We just didn’t want to jinx anything. Watching the nominations was too much for our nerves, so we just had a restless night and slept through it.”

Nolan and Thomas had little reason to worry. “Oppenheimer,” Nolan’s sprawling American saga about J. Walter Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb, has more or less been an Oscar favorite since its acclaimed debut in late July. On Tuesday, he received nominations for seemingly every creative aspect of his achievements, including the acting of Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt.

“Oppenheimer” was nominated for Nolan’s directing and adapted screenplay; for cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema; Editing by Jennifer Lame; Costume design by Ellen Mirojnick; Production Design by Ruth De Jong and Claire Kaufman; makeup and hair styling by Louise Abel; better sound; and Ludwig Göransson’s score. He was one nomination short of breaking the record for the best Oscar nominations ever.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Thomas, who spoke with her husband in an interview hours after the nominations were announced. “We then began the routine task of getting the 16-year-old out of bed, but with a spring in our step. “

Although Nolan is considered the greatest director of his era, he never won an Academy Award—and none of his films were named Best Picture. He was once nominated for best director for Dunkirk. But Nolan’s absence from major movie stages has often been more noticeable than the accolades his films have garnered. After his “The Dark Knight” was named best picture of 2009, the academy expanded the category to five films.

But this year’s Oscars may see the 53-year-old Nolan crowned and a three-hour opus that has broken records (according to conventional Hollywood wisdom) by grossing nearly $1 billion worldwide. On Tuesday, he and Thomas reflected on the film’s Oscar success. ___

AP: Do you see the success of “Oppenheimer” as a statement to the film industry, which typically allocates large budgets only to sequels and remakes, about what is possible for an original film made on a larger scale?

Nolan: I grew up loving Hollywood films and believing that studio filmmaking could handle anything. Seeing how the public reacted to how incredibly exciting this summer was, and receiving such recognition from the Academy, I don’t even know what to say. It certainly reaffirms our belief in what studio filmmaking can be.

AP: Have you ever thought about why Oppenheimer caused such a stir?

Nolan: It’s always difficult to analyze the zeitgeist or analyze success. We were very interested and excited, in particular, to see how young people reacted to a piece of history. I keep coming back to the uniqueness of this story. I think this is one of the great American stories. It includes so much that is important and dramatic in our history. It gives the audience a lot to enjoy: when you have a great group of actors and an incredible cast like we have, you can make it all real and emotionally accessible. This is as far as I can analyze his success. Plus, sometimes you catch a wave, and that’s a wonderful and unique thing.

Thomas: Often you think of history as the ancient past, and it doesn’t have much relevance to today. But I think what’s unique about Oppenheimer’s story is that everything that’s in the film has a lot to do with this moment in time. And so I think it really touched the audience.

Nolan: Yeah, that’s a good point. When I first started working on the project, one of my kids told me about nuclear weapons, people my age don’t really worry about that. This was a couple of years ago. With everything that has happened in the world since then, it has changed a lot. We came along at a time when people were starting to worry about it again and worry about the fate of the world. Oppenheimer’s story is very important to this – not only the threat of nuclear weapons, but also the growing threat of artificial intelligence and what it can do to our world.

AP: Although your films have often been recognized by the Academy, neither of you has won an Oscar. Does it feel different this year?

Nolan: I think the breadth of awareness that we woke up to this morning is something we haven’t experienced before, and it really excites us. It’s a unique feeling to see the Academy recognize every aspect of a film, from the acting to the film’s technical achievements. I mean, I grew up watching the Academy Awards. This is kind of the pinnacle of peer recognition.

AP: Do you consider Oppenheimer the culmination of your collaboration?

Thomas: It definitely feels like a movie that uses everything we’ve learned together over the years. It all came together in this film. But I hope this is not the climax. I hope we can do another one. (Laughs) We’re halfway there!

Nolan: We’re just getting started! In each film you try to build on what you learned in the previous films.

AP: Any big plans to celebrate tonight?

Thomas: Well, we’ll probably have dinner with our kids. We have one who is going back to college. We will be having a family celebration, which seems quite appropriate given the nature of our film and the way we work.

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Follow AP Writer Jake Coyle at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP