On July 13th, Odeon Leicester Square in London turned into the hottest red carpet event in recent history. The premiere of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk drew fans in from across the world as they awaited the arrival of some of the best actors in the business and some incredibly talented newcomers.
From Tom Hardy to Fionn Whitehead, Cillian Murphy to Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh to Aneurin Barnard and Mark Rylance to Jack Lowden – just to name some of the ensemble – the stars were shining brightly.
Prince Harry was in attendance too and we can’t forget Christopher Nolan and his talented wife Emma Thomas. The praise surrounding the film began to grow with each celebrity that showed up on the red carpet. Each star stopped for a brief interview before continuing inside where an audience was able to see the film, a week ahead of its debut.
The entire premiere can be viewed in the video below.
One of the stand out things that keeps getting brought up in interviews is the amount of dialogue in the film. Nolan says it has about half of what his scripts usually do, and he didn’t want a lot of information about the characters to be given away.
Fionn Whitehead touched on that as well by saying that there’s not a lot of character build up, so you have to find out who they are on your own. It allows you to take them at face value, without a previous bond formed.
Cillian Murphy mentioned that he couldn’t pinpoint one emotion when he watched the film, you go through a variety of emotions as you watch Dunkirk. He also spoke of the authenticity due to the way Nolan put the film together, it was as real as they could get. ‘It alters you’, Cillian says.
Kenneth Branagh says the main pull of the film for him at first was Nolan, how talented he is as a filmmaker, and when he told Kenneth what he planned to do with Dunkirk, he was hooked. He also says that one of his favorite things about the film is that ‘It doesn’t set itself up pretentiously to be important.’
James D’Arcy was wowed by the crowd in attendance and started by saying that Nolan is the greatest filmmaker in the world, he didn’t even give himself the opportunity to dream about working with him, and then it happened. He also says that at times, it felt like they were all just waiting to die.
Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas spoke about the importance of the authenticity, it was the thing that everyone knew held the most power. They also spoke about having their cake and eating it too when it came to casting.
Harry Styles spoke next and he praised Nolan from the start, saying he was such an incredible director he felt privileged to be on set in one of his films and to be surrounded by such amazing actors. He joked that he may have ‘peaked too soon’. He says that telling the story is very important and he feels lucky to be part of that. He also spoke on the fact that they knew their job on set was to make the film the best that it could be, and we can’t wait to see how their dedication paid off.
Perhaps, no highlight was more important than the Veterans who were in attendance who were veterans from the Battle of Dunkirk. Their stories hadn’t been told in a way like this before, it hadn’t been told on a scale this massive. Watching some of the veterans walk the red carpet with wide smiles and pride was a moment every person in attendance and every person watching on the live stream will keep with them forever.
You can watch Fionn introduce Prince Harry’s conversation with three veterans and hear the stories they shared with one another, for George, for the first time.
We are such big fans of Nolan already, and of the shining cast members, but after the focus they put towards the veterans during the premiere and for the way they took their roles so seriously, they’re worthy of all the praise they’re getting.
Congratulations to the cast and crew of Dunkirk, we can’t wait to see the film soon.