Oppenheimer’s Surprising Cameo Scene Reused An Old HBO Set

Oppenheimer production designer Ruth De Jong reveals that a last-minute cancellation led to the film’s big cameo scene reusing an old HBO set. Based on American Prometheus by Martin J. Shirwin and Kai Bird, director Christopher Nolan’s latest film chronicles the life and career of the titular American theoretical physicist responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb. The film was a massive hit in part due to the impressive Oppenheimer cast, which included a surprise appearance by Gary Oldman as President Harry Truman.

In a recent interview with Slash Film, De Jong reveals that the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, the location they had originally intended to use for Oldman’s Oppenheimer cameo, fell through at the last minute. This led to a hectic search for a replacement, with the production eventually opting to use an old set from HBO’s Veep. Check out De Jong’s full explanation below:

“Ultimately what happened was we lost that location with about seven days to go, and had a locked actor and needed to have a place to shoot. […] So I called Tom Hayslip, our executive producer, right away. […] I said, ‘Maybe we can shoot this at the end,’ not knowing the information that Gary Oldman was already booked and his date was set and that was the schedule.

“Thankfully, my supervising art director, Samantha Englender, was smart enough to have put one [location] on hold. […] It was the ‘Veep’ Oval Office. It was flat-packed. Which was kind of great, but when we called the storage unit, they said, ‘Oh, it’ll take about four or five days to pull it out.’ I said, ‘I don’t have four or five days. I’m sending a crew over, they’re going to help you pull it out. It has to come over. We’re going to go get a stage now at Universal.’

“I don’t think any of us actually believed we could do it, not because we weren’t capable, but just the clock. And we did.”

Why Gary Oldman’s Oppenheimer Cameo Is So Important

Oldman’s only scene in the film comes after Oppenheimer‘s thrilling Trinity Test sequence and the subsequent bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At this point in the movie, Cillian Murphy’s lead character is grappling with extreme amounts of guilt over his role in bringing this new destructive technology into the world and its killing of tens of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians.

Oppenheimer’s scene with President Truman sees the theoretical physicist explicitly expressing that he has “blood on his hands,” which appears to irritate the President. In fact, Truman even refers to Murphy’s character as a “crybaby” in the scene after their meeting, and this interaction largely serves as a microcosm of what the last hour of the movie is about. After the bombings, Oppenheimer, guided by his guilt, is staunchly against the creation of the more powerful hydrogen bomb, a stance that puts him directly at odds with key figures in the American government, including Robert Downey Jr.’s Lewis Strauss.

The scene between Murphy’s character and President Truman also foreshadows Oppenheimer‘s chilling ending, which sees the titular character expressing to Albert Einstein that he fears he has started a chain reaction that will eventually destroy the world. The Truman scene in Nolan’s latest film is but one of a dozen memorable moments, and it’s now clear that audiences have Veep to thank for its backdrop.