THE HOLE TRUTH

Jonah Nolan on the “dark beauty” at the heart of Interstellar

“The challenge with the black hole is that it’s a black hole. If cinema is light, all the way back to the Lumière brothers, then portraying a black hole is a bit of a challenge. And I think our FX guys have actually nailed it in terms of capturing that dark beauty. We spent an awful lot of time thinking and learning about black holes in order to understand them and they become a big part of the landscape of the film, quite literally. I was fascinated by them, but if you work long enough you begin to understand the difference between the things that fascinate you and the things that will make for good cinema. Black holes are definitely in that space. They should be so compelling and so cinematic but they eat light! Working with Kip they came up with a wonderful way to visualise them. They built a corona into this one which is deeply beautiful. It gives you a sense for a black hole, it gives you something to hang onto.”