10 Striking Insights About Christopher Nolan And His Movies

Christopher Nolan is without question one of the biggest directors in modern Hollywood.

First breaking out at the turn of the century with Memento, the filmmaker has spent the last 14 years making epic, thought provoking movies on various scales and has earned both critical and box office love.

In addition to being a fantastic filmmaker, however, he is also a tremendously interesting individual, as I learned listening to him speak for nearly a full hour this afternoon. 

Earlier today, the filmmaker took part in a special luncheon at CinemaCon called "From Passion To The Big Screen: The Work of Christopher Nolan" where he spoke with The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy about not only his entire body of work up to this point, but also about his upcoming science-fiction epic Interstellar. The interview was packed with all kinds of fascinating info, so read on to discover what we found out! 

Here's what you don't know about the director >

Matthew McConaughey’s performance in "Mud" was partially responsible for him being cast in "Interstellar."

In case you aren’t already aware, Matthew McConaughey is having a bit of a career resurgence right now. After years of doing nothing but crappy romantic comedies, the star has made a complete 180 and even a couple weeks ago took home his first Academy Award.

But while few would argue that his turn in Dallas Buyers Club was anything less than exceptional, it was actually a different 2013 McConaughey film – Jeff Nichol’s Mud - that led Christopher Nolan to casting him in Interstellar.

For the part, the director wanted to find an actor with an everyman quality who audiences could really understand and follow through the story. Apparently what they have worked together on is working pretty well, because Nolan says that the star’s performance is "shaping up to be something extraordinary."

They built full-on practical spaceship sets for "Interstellar."

Just like he has been doing for all of his films up to this point in his career, Christopher Nolan is trying to keep Interstellar as much as a mystery as he can, and while he wouldn’t reveal any big plot details during the luncheon, he did provide some interesting tidbits about the production.

The filmmaker discussed his preference to use large-scale practical sets instead of large amounts of CG for the space epic, and part of that involved not just the building of a spaceship interior, but also special exteriors that actors could see by looking out of the windows of the spaceship set. He believes that audiences can sense when things are actually there instead of just being all computer generated, and even likened the filmmaking experience on the set to making a documentary. 

He thinks 3D takes away from the shared cinematic experience.

Since 3D became the biggest technological fad in Hollywood, many have been very vocal about how it actually harms certain films, complaining about brightness problems, nausea, and more, but for Christopher Nolan one of the key issues is the fact that slapping on a pair of 3D glasses does its part to take away the communal experience of watching a film in a crowded cineplex - likening the situation to watching a comedy in a theater with stadium seating.

Instead of just hating on 3D, however, the filmmaker said that he does like that it offers movie-goers a certain amount of choice and even complimented the work that Baz Luhrmann did with The Great Gatsby, calling the 3D in the movie "very, very extraordinary."