Los Alamos National Laboratory employees Sarah Tasseff (red dress) and Arthur Bishop (dark suit) play community members in a scene filmed in Fuller Lodge, where ash rained down from snow-making machines. The haunting special-effects dream sequence, done with things like strobe lighting, basic props and latex, reveals J. Robert Oppenheimer’s troubled subconscious. Labbies Kelsey Dennisen and Tom Tierney are visible in the frame as well. Credit: Universal Pictures

LANL News:

• 17 employees tell what it was really like behind the scenes as extras in the hit movie

Christopher Nolan made a point of hiring Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists among the hundreds of extras he needed to create his historical thriller “Oppenheimer”.

According to a Washington Post article, “The director was amazed at how the actual scientists in the room could improvise incredibly complex geopolitical conversations based on their knowledge of the bomb. … ‘The actors were riffing on what the extras were giving them,’ Nolan said. ‘It was a very unusual situation.’”

On various sets around New Mexico in 2022, Lab employees talked science and bumped fists with celebrities. From the 1940s town of Los Alamos reconstructed near Abiquiú to the blinding blast of the Trinity site reimagined in Belen, these Labbies, outfitted in period dress and hairstyles, found themselves immersed in the Manhattan Project and the story of the father of the atomic bomb in unimaginable ways.

Here, 17 extras share some star-studded highlights from the experience.

Read the rest of the story here.