The secret behind the most iconic shot in ‘Interstellar’
The biggest test of Christopher Nolan’s dedication to relying on in-camera techniques as often as possible came with Interstellar, an existential sci-fi epic on a colossal scale that travelled to distant planets and explored the very fabric of existence.
For many filmmakers, it would have been much less of a logistical nightmare to simply use greenscreens and visual effects, but that’s never been Nolan’s remit. Whether it was shooting the ice planet of Mann on location in Iceland, planting entire fields of crops for the opening stretch of the story set on Earth, or using gigantic fans to blow devastating dust clouds into the frame, Interstellar kept things as real as it could.
On first watch, it would be all too easy to assume that when Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper plunges into a black hole, the actor would be largely restricted to working on a cavernous soundstage draped in floor-to-ceiling greenscreen. Instead, Nolan didn’t even consider using a shred of fabric, with the entire set being constructed for real. Within the context of the narrative, it’s the emotional climax and the culmination of Cooper’s journey on a personal, psychological, and physiological level. Still, in terms of filmmaking, it’s far and away the most immersively impressive moment Interstellar has to offer.
Working closely with theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, regular production designer Nathan Crowley, and visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin, the quartet put their heads together to try and figure out a way to shoot the scene practically. Unsurprisingly, though, it was Nolan who served as the catalyst after becoming transfixed by the idea of world lines.
“A world line is something that comes out of Einstein’s theory of relativity: It’s the idea that every object, every person, and every piece of matter in the universe is leaving a trail in space-time behind it because we live in a four-dimensional universe,” Franklin said, per IndieWire. “And we had this idea that the Tesseract was a concept that shows time as a physical dimension, so Cooper could interact with it and move back and forth across the timeline and find specific moments in the history of his daughter’s bedroom.”
That’s a lofty enough concept as it is, but trying to apply that to cinema required a breakthrough that not many directors other than Nolan could have even conceived. “Chris came up with the idea of an alternating lattice where each of the rooms has two sets of world lines coming in, and the third axis alternates along the routes,” Franklin continued. “If you look carefully at the Tesseract, you have these world lines that stretch through the lattice and the rooms are embedded as a series of moments in time along the world lines. It’s either a moment in the future or a moment in the past, depending on which way you go.”
The art department was then handed geometrical schematics on how to build the Tesseract as a set that could accommodate the cast, crew, and equipment and multiple realities, with the four-sided structure capable of moving independently to create the illusion of Cooper passing through from the inside. It was a monumental undertaking, and doing it entirely with CGI would have been significantly more time-effective. Still, Interstellar sought to maintain Nolan’s adherence to practicality unless it was impossible to pull off.
