✎ Editor’s notes on 15 facts

FILM · 2014 · UK

Interstellar

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Runtime: 169 min
Studio: Legendary Pictures, Syncopy, Lynda Obst Productions

15 archived facts 3 topics 2 sources Last reviewed Oct 2026

The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

15 Interesting Facts About Interstellar

Name: Interstellar
Released: 2014

Interesting Facts (1)

#001
Interstellar came out in 2014, yet it was the most pirated film of 2015. That demand spilled over onto Interstelar (2014), a Russian “mockbuster” on YouTube: viewers mistook it for a bootleg of Nolan's film and gave it hundreds of thousands of views before it was taken down. It later resurfaced on another channel, timed to the release of its sequel, Interstelar 2: Operation Terra 2040 (2016).
Editor’s noteArka Evren
This kind of thing happens all the time. For example, there are people who slap on a title as if they'd released the season 6 trailer for Breaking Bad.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Cooper and Brand in the shuttleImage: IMDb
INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED
Share Report

Production Story (13)

#002
Kip Thorne, the theoretical physicist, supplied the scientific foundation the screenplay was built on.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
I've said before that Nolan doesn't make art — he does math, and it makes people feel smart. Interstellar is a good film, but my point is that it too is a work built on scientific research. Art isn't like science. It doesn't rest on a set of physical and scientific laws. Art is where emotion, artistry and the aesthetic world come in. So this film isn't as good as people think either.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Kip Thorne at an Interstellar eventImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#003
The film's buildings take their cue from the work of modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
The script comes from theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, the building designs from modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It's a work of mathematics. Not art.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Modern architectural structure in InterstellarImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#004
Sir Christopher Nolan cast Matthew McConaughey on the strength of his performance in Mud (2012). Landing the Texas native for the lead came at an “ideal moment,” Nolan said: “I'm thrilled for him right now. I didn't know how much potential he had until I saw 'Mud', not just as a leading man, but in sheer acting talent.” What he needed, he explained, was “an everyday man who can experience these extraordinary events.”
Editor’s noteArka Evren
Look, cinema isn't like that. Seeing an actor in just one film where he's the lead and deciding he's pure talent. Matthew's performance in True Detective is above this film. Because he flung his writers' original aphorisms in the cops' faces in his own style. In True Detective season 1, when Matthew's female co-star comes to his house to cheat on him, Rust Cohle can't help himself and has sex with her. That scene is above the scenes of all Nolan films. Because there we see human nature. A man's nature and a woman's nature. People are constantly pairing up, sex is a very normal part of this world. Matthew did a better job there with the character Rust Cohle. The way he talks to the cops and his attitude.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Nolan and McConaughey on setImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#005
Hans Zimmer wrote the main themes before ever reading the screenplay, working only from a short story idea Christopher Nolan had shared with him.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
As a director, after finishing one of my short films, I sent it to a composer friend of mine. He watched it, composed music for it and sent it back to me. And one of the first times we met was because I thought a piano piece a friend of his had finished in a common Facebook group would fit the final scene of my short film really well, and because I put that piano piece at the end of that short film.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Hans Zimmer in front of the Interstellar posterImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · CHRISTOPHER NOLAN · MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY · SOURCED
Related
- Christopher Nolan
- Matthew McConaughey
·Share·Report
#006
The story merges Sir Christopher Nolan's own idea with a script his brother Jonathan Nolan had already written in 2007 for Paramount Pictures and Producer Lynda Obst.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
In the art world, script, acting, editing, directing develop among family, relatives, friends; people gather around an idea and can develop something. But it's worth saying again, this is not an art film. It's mathematics.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy at the Interstellar premiereImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#007
Aaron Paul was among the actors considered for a part.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
Aaron Paul played Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad. If he'd played a role in this film that isn't seen much but isn't seen little either, the film would have been more watchable. I don't know how it did at the box office, but it would have brought in more. I don't know what kind of stir it would have caused on the artistic side, but Aaron Paul could have added some colour to the film.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Two astronauts talking in a spaceshipImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#008
The screenplay draws on the work of theoretical physicist Dr. Kip Thorne, who described the story as “based on warped space-time, the most exotic events in the universe suddenly becoming accessible to humans.”
Editor’s noteArka Evren
The most complex structure in the universe isn't galaxies or stars, the most complex structure in the universe is the human brain.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Kip Thorne at an eventImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#009
Dr. Kip Thorne, the theoretical physicist whose work inspired the film, was asked to make a cameo appearance as himself.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
A kind of cameo-style role could have been good for him. He's already put his signature on the film by basing the script on his own work. Appearing as a character could have been nice for him.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Christopher Nolan with an IMAX cameraImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#010
Nolan looked to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s for inspiration, with one change: his dust storms were meant to come down like a cloudburst.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
Apparently Nolan drew inspiration from a lot of things in this film. Which makes it feel more like other people's work than his own. For example, in Breaking Bad most of the ideas came from creator Vince Gilligan. In this film there's constant inspiration, borrowing.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Astronaut in a dusty terrainImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#011
Kip Thorne pushed for every major scientific idea in the film to stay rooted in real theoretical physics wherever possible, which gives the story an unusual degree of scientific credibility.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
For someone like Nolan, who plays with people's perceptions, such an attitude in his film is only fitting.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Kip Thorne in front of an Interstellar posterImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#012
From 2014, Paramount Pictures began phasing out traditional film prints in favor of digital projection. Sir Christopher Nolan, a vocal champion of celluloid, insisted that this movie also go out in 15/70mm IMAX, standard 70mm and 35mm two full days before its wider digital release.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
The Odyssey film had also been released in theaters. The film where Nolan had a Black woman and a trans person act. If you ask me, woke culture is the effort of the people at the top to build the future.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Christopher Nolan directing on setImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#013
Sir Christopher Nolan considers Hans Zimmer's score for this film the strongest, most powerful work the composer has done so far.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
Christopher Nolan's personal opinion. In Hans Zimmer's most impressive work, it's the music he made for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The music fit the game so well that CoD: MW 2 is maybe the best CoD game. CoD is a cinematic game, and its artistic direction carries a lot of weight. The reason people back then wanted to buy Call of Duty so eagerly is that the duo Jason West and Vince Zampella (Call of Duty, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) kept contributing to Call of Duty by making better and better single-player games — today it's the most popular game in the world, but the game broke off with Black Ops II, and these are the two important game developers who gave Call of Duty its true identity.
And that wasn't enough: with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 he got Hans Zimmer to make music, worked it into the game at the most critical moments, and did his most impressive work with this game. I don't think Nolan understands art. He does nothing but make films that make ordinary minds feel smart. That he points to Interstellar as an example from one of the world's few great composers like Hans Zimmer, when there are plenty of other examples out there, says something about the side of him that doesn't understand art.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Christopher Nolan on the Interstellar setImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report
#014
At 169 minutes and a budget of roughly $165 million, the film cost about $976,000 per minute of screen time.
Editor’s noteArka Evren
The conditions and budget Nolan has secured in today's cinema are so absurd that audiences see him as one of the smartest men in cinema. Yet one of the best directors in cinema is Kieslowski. While names like Francis Ford Coppola, Sergio Leone, Stanley Kubrick and Sidney Lumet are the peaks of the art of cinema, the role assigned to Nolan and the attention shown to him feel fake to me. Nolan has never made "a really good film." Every one of his films is a little above average and makes the audience feel smart.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Spacecraft model on the Interstellar setImage: IMDb
PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED
Share Report

Behind the Scenes (1)

#015
Dr. Mann's planet was shot on the same glacier used for Batman Begins. While the crew was scouting it, a local tour guide who had no idea who they were proudly announced, “Christopher Nolan once filmed here!”
Editor’s noteArka Evren
People are drawn to what's popular. Christopher Nolan doesn't deserve this attention. I can say this. I don't think Nuri Bilge Ceylan's films are bad, but compared to the attention he gets, he's an overrated director.
sufferwithme / Founder / Editor
Interstellar (2014): Astronauts walking on a glacierImage: IMDb
BEHIND THE SCENES · SOURCED
Share Report

Analysis

Film2 min read · October 20, 2026

Interstellar: An Overrated Film

Interstellar is a good film, even ambitious enough to push the peaks of the sci-fi genre. However, there is a detail in the film that bothered me excessively and felt artificial: Matthew…

Interstellar (2014)

sufferwithme / Founder

Continue through the archive

Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

Wikipedia English Wikipedia article
IMDb IMDb title page (trivia)

Sources for the entries on this page

Wikipedia Interstellar (film) — WikipediaEncyclopedia · accessed 17 Sep 2026

Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work