Oppenheimer – Lead Actors who Value History over Wealth

Just weeks after a writers’ pay strike affected Hollywood, the Oppenheimer film demonstrated that excessively paid staff will accept a lower package if they value the outcome.

This may be true for all workers, and many admit that “it doesn’t even feel like work when you love what you do”. Therefore a possible solution to satisfying workers across the writing sector, is to negotiate lower pay rates for those on camera, and more exposure for mostly obscure writers. 

Oppenheimer follows the life of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II’s Manhattan Project. It is said that his contributions led to the creation of the atomic bomb. 

The film includes big names like its writer and director, Christopher Nolan, and its other producers, Emma Thaomas, Charles Roven. Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr. Matt Damon and Florence Pugh all have leading roles. Yet the film was made on a budget of only $100 million. 

Look at the pay reductions that the big names agreed to:

1. Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer – Salary: $ 5 million
2. Emily Blunt – Salary: $ 4 million
3. Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss – Salary: $ 4 million
4. Matt Damon as Leslie Groves – Salary: $ 3 million
5. Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock – Salary: $ 1 million
6. Benny Safdie as Edward Teller – Salary: $ 700,000
7. Michael Angarano as Robert Serber – Salary: $ 500,000
8. Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence – Salary: $ 400,000

They understand the historical significance of their movement and that may very well be priceless.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist who was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory. He came to be known as the “father of the atomic bomb”. Oppenheimer graduated from Harvard University with a Chemistry degree, then studied physics at the University of Cambridge and earned a PhD from the University of Göttingen in 1927.