Oppenheimer’s Emily Blunt Reveals She’s Taking a Year Off From Acting

Oppenheimer star Emily Blunt is taking a break from acting. During an appearance on the Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi podcast (via The Hollywood Reporter), Blunt said that she’s not working this year and taking a break from acting to put her family first. Blunt has two children with husband John Krasinski.

“This year, I’m not working. I worked quite a bit last year and my oldest baby is nine, so we’re in the last year of single digits,” Blunt said. “And I just feel [like] there are cornerstones to their day that are so important when they’re little. And it’s, ‘Will you wake me up? Will you take me to school? Will you pick me up? Will you put me to bed? And I just need to be there for all of them for a good stretch. And I just feel that in my bones.”

Who is in Oppenheimer?

Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt as Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, Michael Angarano as Robert Serber, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer, David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi, Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush, Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge, Devon Bostick as Seth Neddermeyer, Matthias Schweighöfer as Werner Heisenberg, Christopher Denham as Klaus Fuchs, Guy Burnet as George Eltenton, Danny Deferrari as Enrico Fermi, Emma Dumont as Jackie Oppenheimer, Gustaf Skarsgård as Hans Bethe, Trond Fausa Aurvåg as George Kistiakowsky, and Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman.

The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven, and Christopher Nolan.

Director Christopher Nolan Has Compared Oppenheimer to a Horror Movie

Given that the real J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team created the atomic bombs that went on to ill more than 300,000 people at the end of the world, it’s safe to say that the film isn’t necessarily going to be a feel-good film. Nolan has said that the film ultimately straddles the line of horror, so much so that move-goers will leave theaters devastated.

“It is an intense experience, because it’s an intense story. I showed it to a filmmaker recently who said it’s kind of a horror movie. I don’t disagree,” Nolan said in a recent chat with Wired magazine. “It’s interesting that you used the word nihilism earlier, because I don’t think I’d quite managed to put my finger on it. But as I started to finish the film, I started to feel this color that’s not in my other films, just darkness. It’s there. The film fights against that.”

According to Nolan, he’s glad to be done with post-production on the film so that he can help clear his conscience of the darker subject matter.

“You know, I was relieved to be finished with it, actually. But I enjoy watching the film tremendously,” the director added. “I think you’ll understand when you see the film. It’s a complicated set of feelings to be entertained by awful things, you know? Which is where the horror dimension comes in.”

Oppenheimer opens in theaters on July 21st.