Throughout the film, the color red was used to indicate time moving forward, while blue was used to indicate time running in reverse. This is a nod to the Doppler effect, in which light masses moving away from Earth appear red when their light waves are stretched outward (redshift), and light masses moving toward Earth appear blue when their light waves are compressed together (blueshift).
The production team bought a real 747 aircraft and then crashed it into a hangar. The entire sequence consisted of practical effects and contained no visual effects or CGI. Director Sir Christopher Nolan initially planned to use miniatures and fixed-part structures. However, while scouting locations in Victorville, California, the team discovered numerous old aircraft, and it turned out that buying a real, full-size plane and performing the sequence for real in front of the camera would be more efficient.
The word 'Tenet' likely originated from the Sator Square (a word square containing a five-word Latin palindrome that extends to the ruins of Pompeii). The puzzle is a five-by-five square made up of five five-letter words written in five rows: SATOR, AREPO, TENET, OPERA and ROTAS. In every direction the square is rotated, these five words appear both horizontally and vertically, a feature that suits the film's time-reversal quality. It is also notable that all five words appear in the film: Sir Kenneth Branagh's character is named Andrei SATOR, the forger responsible for the painting, and Kat's (Elizabeth Debicki) former lover is named Tomas AREPO, TENET is the name of the organization the Protagonist is recruited into, OPERA refers to the setting of the opening scene, and ROTAS is the name of the security company.
Filming for the car chase scene took three weeks and required the team to close eight kilometers (nearly five miles) of a six-lane highway in central Tallinn. They then shot cars moving both forward and backward.
The main cast learned to perform stunts backward as well as to speak their lines in reverse. Sir Kenneth Branagh not only learned to speak in reverse but also had to do it with his character's Russian accent.
There was a great deal of secrecy surrounding the project before its release. Actor Robert Pattinson said he was only allowed to read the script in a locked office at Warner Bros. Studios. His co-star Sir Michael Caine was not even allowed to read the entire script. He was given his scenes to read only before shooting. Before the film's release, Caine told the press that, despite the director Sir Christopher Nolan being a very close friend and frequent collaborator, he had no idea what the film was about.
To shoot the elaborate forward-and-backward car chase scene with little or no visual effects, a team of twenty of the best drivers from California was assembled, later joined by experienced stunt drivers from Estonia, Prague and the United Kingdom. The group included the famous Jim Wilkey, who had flipped the Joker's truck in The Dark Knight (2008) about twelve years earlier.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States in the spring of 2020, roughly eighty percent of the film's score was complete. The only thing it truly affected was an orchestra session planned for April. As a result, some of the soundtrack was completed by combining individual recordings the musicians made in their homes.
Apart from a few lead actors, the entire stunt team and hundreds of extras took part in the final battle scene. Given the demands of the action and the very high temperatures, there was a prerequisite for the background actors: they all had to be former soldiers. This was put in place because the stunt team knew the extras would be in full military fatigues with weapons and gear for more than ten hours a day in the desert heat. In addition to the task, they would be running over rough terrain filled with rocks and concrete, with carefully placed explosions around them.
Actor Sir Kenneth Branagh stated that he read the film's script more than any other film he had worked on. He compared navigating the script to solving the 'Times' crossword every day.
Robert Pattinson said he drew inspiration from British-American author and journalist Christopher Hitchens for his character's accent, intonation and mannerisms. Pattinson never uses a real London accent when playing English characters, saying: "For whatever reason, using my own accent for a role feels fake to me; if I'm just playing myself on screen, I feel like a fraud."
During the final temporal pincer battle scene, the image of the building simultaneously exploding and imploding was almost entirely shot in camera. The production team built large-scale miniatures consisting of two 1/3-scale buildings, then blew up the top of one and the bottom of the other. They matched the camera angles and then combined the shots in post-production. Visual effects were used only to correct the excessive amount of dust caused by one of the explosions.
In the thrilling battle scene, the army is divided into two teams: the red team moving forward in time and the blue team inverted and moving backward. When the focus is on the blue (inverted) team, the score changes to include a short motif that is also played backward. This recalls the score of Inception (2010), whose main motif was based on a heavily slowed-down version of the French song "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" to represent the apparent slowing of time while dreaming.
The scene set in the opera house in Kiev was actually shot in Tallinn, Estonia, at Linnahall, which was built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. The building had not been maintained for at least ten years, so production designer Nathan Crowley and his team had a lot of work to do before filming began. They rebuilt the set, polished the concrete and also rebuilt part of the exterior walls. They also had to repair doors, replace a large amount of glass and deal with the audience seating and carpets.
This is the first Sir Christopher Nolan film since The Prestige (2006) whose music was not composed by Hans Zimmer. The composer turned Nolan down for the first time in more than a decade to score his long-cherished passion project Dune: Part One (2021). He was replaced by newcomer Ludwig Göransson, who had recently won an Oscar for his work on Black Panther (2018).
After being offered the lead role in the film, John David Washington read the script in director Sir Christopher Nolan's locked office at Warner Bros. Studios. It took him about five hours to finish reading it because he kept going back and forth "in pure amazement."
With a production budget of $205 million, the film became director Sir Christopher Nolan's most expensive original film and one of the most expensive original films at the time of its initial release. The film was not based on any pre-existing material. It is Nolan's second most expensive film overall, after The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which cost $250 million.
Robert Pattinson stated that he did most of the stunt driving in the film himself, including a particular scene shot in Estonia in which he and John David Washington were in a BMW with an IMAX camera mounted on its hood. This meant he could see almost nothing through the windshield, and a slight turn could result in the equipment hitting the road.
Although John David Washington (the Protagonist) is more athletic than the average actor (he once held his university's single-season record and even shot for the NFL), the shoot was so grueling that he could not run for more than a month after filming some of the action scenes. He said: "There were some times I couldn't get up out of bed."
It contains only 280 visual effects shots, fewer than most modern romantic comedies. This is also a low number for director Sir Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight (2008) contained 650 VFX shots, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) 450, Inception (2010) about 500, and Dunkirk (2017) only 429 visual effects shots.
Director Sir Christopher Nolan is a big fan of James Bond films, and his love of the spy genre is evident in this film as well. However, while working on Tenet, Nolan did everything he could not to watch films that might influence him too much; it was the longest the director had gone in his life without watching a Bond film. The reason was that he wanted to work from a memory and a feeling belonging to that genre. He was not trying to make his own version of a James Bond film; instead, he was trying to create the excitement many people felt while watching Bond films in their childhood.
Although the film is not scientifically accurate, it is roughly based on real physics. Before filming began, director Sir Christopher Nolan asked physicist Kip Thorne, with whom he had previously worked on Interstellar (2014), to read the script to help with some of the concepts.
About 1.6 million feet of IMAX footage was shot for the film, breaking director Sir Christopher Nolan's own record. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema suspects they shot in more formats than any previous film.
When costume designer Jeffrey Kurland learned that Elizabeth Debicki (who plays Kat) had been cast, he immediately suggested to Sir Christopher Nolan that they make use of her height, because "she's never gonna be shorter than anybody onscreen." Kurland already dressed the 1.80-meter-tall actress in high heels in many of her scenes, gave her longer skirts so you could see the length of her legs, and cut her suits to reinforce her linear quality.
For both safety and control, the jet used during the plane crash was not allowed to taxi under its own power. Stunt performer Jim Wilkey had to take lessons to earn a special license, after which he managed to drive the tug that pulled the plane down the runway before it changed direction; after that, a cable system took over to guide the actual impact. It took several weeks to work out this system and get the timing exactly right before the actors arrived.
No green screen was used, only practical set effects. This includes the inversion sequences, which director Sir Christopher Nolan chose to shoot twice for each scene: once with the actors moving forward and once with everything done in reverse.
Composer Ludwig Göransson incorporated director Sir Christopher Nolan's breathing into part of the score used around Sir Kenneth Branagh's villain. The sound was achieved by Nolan breathing heavily into a microphone and Göransson turning it into disturbing and unsettling sounds.
The terrace over a dizzying cliff where the Protagonist (John David Washington) meets Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) is not a green screen but real. It is the Terrace of Infinity at Villa Cimbrone in Ravello on Italy's Amalfi Coast.
Elizabeth Debicki insisted on auditioning for her role even though director Sir Christopher Nolan offered it to her without one. It was important to her to know she could do what he was looking for, and according to the director, she walked in and stunned everyone.
John David Washington improvised the line "I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago."
Near the end of the film, Kat makes a spectacular dive to escape Sator's yacht. The 55-metre jump raised a number of potential safety issues, so stunt coordinator George Cottle decided it would be wrong to train Elizabeth Debicki (Kat) to complete the jump herself. Cottle contacted the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series organisation and was put in touch with female diver Jessica Macaulay, who agreed to do the dive.
The first meeting between director Sir Christopher Nolan and Robert Pattinson lasted three hours. At the end of the meeting, Pattinson explained that his blood sugar had dropped very low because they had talked so much and he had been concentrating hard. He asked Nolan for the chocolate on the table in front of them, after which the director ended the meeting immediately. Pattinson thought he had ruined his chance of getting a role in the film.
One of writer and director Sir Christopher Nolan's filmmaking traditions is to bring the cast and crew together before production begins and show them the films that inspired the project they are working on together. For this film, however, Nolan deliberately broke his long-standing tradition and did not host any screenings. This was because he wanted the cast and crew to work with the feeling and memory of the spy genre rather than trying to recreate it. This included the James Bond films.
Special equipment and lenses were made for the film that allowed more intensive use of IMAX cameras. For example, a special camera head was built for the film that would fit in a car and allow the IMAX camera to be rotated 360 degrees. Lenses were also designed to allow the filmmakers to shoot in low-light conditions, which is traditionally a limitation when shooting with IMAX cameras. Several heads were also rigged to fire backwards.
After the script was completed, the first call director Sir Christopher Nolan and producer Dame Emma Thomas made was to casting director John Papsidera, with whom they had worked since Nolan's second feature film, Memento (2000). They met and began exchanging ideas and drew up a long list of potential candidates. Specifically, they started with "playing with leading men, and using them in different ways." The aim was to place major actors in smaller roles around the Protagonist, casting actors who would normally be expected to play the lead.
The opening scene, set in an opera house in Kiev, recalls the 2002 Moscow Dubrovka theatre hostage siege, in which, just as in the film, a group of armed intruders seized the building and the entire audience was gassed into sleep/unconsciousness with a 'powerful opiate' pumped into the auditorium. In real life there, later, "firemen and police officers carried the collapsed bodies of theatregoers. In evening dress. Many of [these] hostages [had already] suffocated [and/or] swallowed their tongues." [As reported in 'From Russia with Blood'; Heidi Blake; 2019].
The eighth and final film directed by Sir Christopher Nolan and featuring Sir Michael Caine, including his voice role in Dunkirk (2017). Caine was absent from Oppenheimer (2023) because he was busy with The Great Escaper and retired after the release of the latter film.
Part of the character of Kat was redesigned specifically for Elizabeth Debicki. The role was originally written as older, but producer Dame Emma Thomas had seen Debicki in Widows (2018) and was so impressed by her performance that she asked her husband and the film's director, Sir Christopher Nolan, to consider the role specifically for her. Kat was subsequently rewritten with Debicki in mind.
Around 3,500 extras appeared in the opening opera scene.
The title was originally stylised with the last two letters reversed to match the film's central concept. Although director Sir Christopher Nolan had designed the logo himself six years before the film's release, the title was later changed because it resembled the logo of a bicycle manufacturer. After being shown it by Warner Bros., Nolan wrote a letter to the company's owner stating that he would stop using the logo if they deemed it necessary.
The film's working title was "Merry Go Round."
Although many film productions were affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Sir Christopher Nolan managed to finish post-production more or less as usual. The film's rough cut was completed before lockdown began in the United States, and further editing was done in the editing room at Nolan's home in Los Angeles, where he had worked on his films since The Dark Knight (2008). It also helped that Nolan, despite being in California, had used the Double Negative visual effects house in the United Kingdom for years and was therefore used to corresponding remotely.
Director Sir Christopher Nolan offered John David Washington the lead role of the Protagonist after seeing him in the HBO comedy-drama series Ballers (2015) and attending the world premiere of BlacKkKlansman (2018) at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
Because of the extremely intense, dark nature of many of the scenes they shared, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Elizabeth Debicki lightened the mood between takes by playing a game in which they took turns singing famous songs whose lyrics they did not fully know, trying to fill in the missing words. The pair explained that while filming the car chase scene, Branagh sang a song from the musical 'Les Misérables' and improvised his own lyrics to it. This made Debicki laugh so hard that she tore the hem of her skirt.
The catamarans owned by Andrei Sator (Sir Kenneth Branagh) are F50 foiling catamarans used in the SailGP racing series. They are the fastest racing class in history, capable of reaching speeds above 50 knots (60 mph).
To put it plainly, this film is not about time travel in the usual sense: that concept implies that a person can return to any random point in the past with the same effort, whether it be ten minutes or ten years. This film uses the concept of reversing the flow of time, which means that for the characters to go ten days back to a specific event, they must spend ten days in reverse time to get there. Contrary to what is believed, this is not the first film to use this idea; the concept was also used in Primer (2004).
There are images and things in the film that director Sir Christopher Nolan had been thinking about for at least 20 years before making it. He worked on the film's details and screenplay for about six years.
The luxury superyacht seen in the film, which is Andrei Sator's (Sir Kenneth Branagh) home, is known in real life as the Ninth Planet. Just over 240 feet long, the vessel has six decks and its own helipad.
The exterior shots of the final battle scene were filmed in Eagle Mountain, a ghost desert town in California. The location had a core group of existing structures that could be converted into the old apartment buildings needed for the sequence, and the production team then also built a number of full-scale buildings. In addition, the team created large-scale models and used forced perspective to make the already enormous set appear even larger.
The three main male characters wear suits for most of the film, so to distinguish them from one another and give them a very different look, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland used a different tailor for each, knowing that each would cut the suits in unique ways.
The Warner Bros. and Syncopy logos are shaded red and blue, respectively. These are the colors used in the film to represent normal and inverted time.
Although a very important scene set on Sator's (Sir Kenneth Branagh) yacht takes place in waters off Vietnam, the producers knew that sailing the expensive superyacht to Southeast Asia would be extremely impractical. Instead, the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy doubled for the country.
In order to achieve certain in-camera effects, IMAX worked with the filmmakers to rebuild the mechanical and electronic components of their cameras so that they could shoot both forward and backward. The production also used the latest generation of sound-reducing housings, called "blimps," for the cameras, which have a very high noise level; this allowed more scenes to be shot using the format.
The film was initially scheduled to be released on July 17, 2020, a lucky date for director Sir Christopher Nolan. However, the release was postponed several times because of the coronavirus pandemic. Warner Bros. ultimately decided to release the film internationally on August 26, after which it opened in the United States on September 3, although screenings in America began as early as August 30.
The scene on the white marble and granite floor, in which the Protagonist (John David Washington) explains the scale of their mission to Neil (Robert Pattinson), was filmed on the roof of the Oslo Opera House in Norway. The roof is actually accessible in real life as well; sloping gently upward from ground level, it creates a large plaza where you can enjoy a panoramic view of the city.
The first Sir Christopher Nolan film since Batman Begins (2005) not to be edited by Lee Smith, because he was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts with the British war film 1917 (2019). Jennifer Lame was hired in his place. Lame is known for her work on smaller independent films such as Manchester by the Sea (2016) and Hereditary (2018).
The British theatrical version was shortened by nine seconds to secure the desired "12A" rating. This included footage of Sator kicking his estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki).
After Interstellar (2014) and Dunkirk (2017), it is the third Sir Christopher Nolan film to be shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema.
The Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, Estonia, doubled as the fictional "Oslo Freeport."
The first large-scale film shot in Tallinn, Estonia, since Stalker (1979).
Director Sir Christopher Nolan cited To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) as an inspiration for the elaborate car chase scene, mainly for how the camera sits with the characters and puts the audience inside the chase.
Principal photography took place in seven countries: Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. Filming began in the United States in May 2019 and lasted nearly six months, finishing in mid-November.
Sir Christopher Nolan admitted that the scene in which the terrorist slams the cello to the ground was included as a way of fulfilling a personal desire, reflecting his frustration at learning to play the cello.
This was the director Sir Christopher Nolan's last film to be produced and distributed by Warner Bros. In September 2021, after nineteen years at the studio, it was confirmed that he was leaving, with the announcement that his next film would be made at Universal. This came after a dispute with Warner Bros. They were releasing their films simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max without consulting the filmmakers on each film.
Four "turnstiles" were built for the film, each with its own unique design, capable of moving and articulating; some were even large enough to fit cars. One of them was built in a warehouse in Estonia; two (and the largest) were built in a closed shopping mall in Hawthorne, California; and the fourth was built on Stage 23 at Warner Bros.
It is Indian actress Dimple Kapadia's first role in Hollywood.
A six-minute prologue was shown in select IMAX theaters before IMAX screenings of Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019). It included a slightly shortened version of the film's opening sequence, followed by a crackling reel. Starting with The Dark Knight (2008), all of director Sir Christopher Nolan's films have released an IMAX prologue or extended footage months before their theatrical releases. With the exception of Interstellar (2014), all of these prologues premiered in December ahead of studio tentpoles such as Star Wars.
Sir Kenneth Branagh revealed that naysayers insisted director Sir Christopher Nolan would not be able to finish the film because of coronavirus lockdown. However, the director insisted on post-production, reducing the mixing room's technical crew from eleven to five, wearing a mask and observing social distancing.
The tailoring of Elizabeth Debicki's costumes was deliberately reminiscent of the late forties and early fifties, though modern elements were mixed in to sustain the period. Her clothes were to be both conservative and stylish, reflecting both her character's vulnerability and, according to designer Jeffrey Kurland, the fact that she "not opening up to anyone and is very closed, very within herself."
When casting the female lead, director Sir Christopher Nolan nearly overlooked actress Elizabeth Debicki because he thought she was American. He was looking for a fully British character and, after seeing her in Widows (2018), was convinced she was from America. So when his wife and producing partner Dame Emma Thomas suggested the actress, she had to inform him that Debicki was not American (she is Australian).
The club where the Protagonist (John David Washington) meets British Intelligence agent Michael Crosby (Sir Michael Caine) is the Reform Club in London. It had previously appeared as the 'Blades' club in two Bond films, in Die Another Day (2002) and, several years later, as a government office in Quantum of Solace (2008).
The thrilling battle scene was shot in three separate locations in California. The exterior shots were filmed at a now-unused iron ore mine in today's ghost desert town of Eagle Mountain; the interiors of the sequence were shot on Stage 16 at Warner Bros. as well as inside a closed shopping mall in the city of Hawthorne.
When the Protagonist first encounters the man in black tactical gear, the man changes/reverses the slide of his pistol. This is the first overt clue regarding the opponent's identity.
The song playing during the end credits sequence is titled "The Plan" and was written specifically for the film by Travis Scott, composer Ludwig Göransson and Wonda Gurl. This marks a first for both Scott and director Sir Christopher Nolan: Scott's first original solo song written for a motion picture, and the first time Nolan has used a rap or hip-hop song in one of his films. It is also the first time a song has been composed specifically for a Nolan film. As Nolan has stated, this film was largely inspired by his love of James Bond, and every James Bond film features an original song written specifically for it (usually including the film's title), making this a very fitting first for him.
Robert Pattinson admitted that he did not understand the plot during filming and had to rely on John David Washington to explain it to him.
Some of the ideas underlying the plot were taken from Nolan's previous film Memento (2000): namely, bullets returning into the gun; but more importantly, the alternation of scenes moving forward and backward throughout the film and a "meeting" at a certain point.
To ensure proficiency in the use of firearms, John David Washington and Robert Pattinson attended the Taran Tactical shooting range in Simi Valley.
It is director Sir Christopher Nolan's eleventh feature film and the fifth of his films (after The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Interstellar (2014) and Dunkirk (2017)) to be shot partly and released in the 70mm IMAX format.
Costume designer Jeffrey Kurland read the film's script six times before sitting down with Sir Christopher Nolan to talk about the characters and how he wanted to present them physically on screen.
Michael Caine plays a character named only 'Crosby' in the credits, but at 26:55 the Protagonist (John David Washington) addresses him as 'Sir Michael'. Sir Michael Caine is indeed a Knight Bachelor.
Sir Christopher Nolan won the New York Film Critics Circle's Best Director award for Oppenheimer (2023), while a Peloton instructor, unaware that Nolan was among those attending his virtual class, mocked Tenet during a workout. The instructor said of the film: "I need a guide! Someone needs to explain this! No, I'm not joking, what was going on in that movie? Do you understand? Seriously, you need to be a neuroscientist to understand it, and I want the two and a half hours of my life back. I want it back." After the story went viral, the instructor said, "I may not have understood a single minute of 'Tenet'... it went right over my head. But I saw 'Oppenheimer.' Twice. That's 6 hours of my life I would never want back... Mr. Nolan, I invite you to ride with me in the Peloton studio. You can critique my class... And I promise you, it will be free of insults."
It shares similar themes with director Sir Christopher Nolan's previous film Interstellar (2014). In both, people can communicate across time and try to find an alternative future for a planet doomed to destruction. However, while in Interstellar the heroes are helped from the future, in this film the people of the future communicate with Sator (Sir Kenneth Branagh) to destroy the past and save the future.
It is the first major studio film to be released during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A surprise 40-second teaser trailer was shown in select United States theaters before the IMAX screenings of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), which began on August 1, 2019. Filming had begun in May 2019 and would not be completed until November.
The Protagonist (John David Washington) first meets Neil (Robert Pattinson) at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, a private club on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Marg near the famous Gateway of India. Opened in 1881, the site remains open only to members to this day.
More than a hundred marine vessels were hired, including catamarans, mega yachts, icebreakers, speedboats, fishing boats and a cargo tanker. The wind farm vessel Iceni Revenge remained in the production through roughly three months of filming in Estonia, Italy and Norway.
The colors blue and red represent inverted time and normal time, respectively. The armored truck carrying the algorithm piece is blue. The fire truck stolen to prevent its use is red.
The plane crash scene was filmed at the airport in Victorville, California, located at the southwestern edge of the Mojave Desert.
Sir Kenneth Branagh (Sator) directed John David Washington's father, Denzel Washington, in Much Ado About Nothing (1993). He also directed Sir Michael Caine, the lead actor of Sleuth (2007).
With an estimated production budget of 205 million US Dollars, this film is the most expensive film ever made to star a non-Caucasian person in the lead role.
Robert Pattinson received the news that he had been cast as Bruce Wayne in The Batman (2022) on his first day on set while shooting this film. This is an interesting coincidence given that director Sir Christopher Nolan had previously made three Batman films: Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
The eighth and final collaboration between Michael Caine and Christopher Nolan before Caine's retirement in 2023. He had appeared in all Nolan films from Batman Begins to Tenet, including his voice performance in Dunkirk, in which he did not appear in the credits.
A terminal at Los Angeles International Airport stood in for the Oslo Airport terminal.
After his wife and producing partner Dame Emma Thomas suggested Elizabeth Debicki for the female lead, director Sir Christopher Nolan went back and rewatched her work in The Great Gatsby (2013), The Night Manager (2016) and Widows (2018).
The film's name is a palindrome: a word that reads the same forwards and backwards.
The mysterious spy Crosby, played by Sir Michael Caine, who was actually 87 during filming, would have been far too old to serve in Britain's Secret Services, where the mandatory retirement age is 65, but in reality senior personnel are often kept on longer because of their experience.
There are similarities between Elizabeth Debicki's role as Kat in this film and her role as Jed in The Night Manager (2016). In both productions, her character is in a relationship with a wealthy arms dealer whom she does not love but must stay with for fear of losing her son. As in the miniseries, in this film too the hero uses her character to obtain information about her husband or lover. The connection goes even further; Kenneth Branagh, who plays her husband in this film, and Hugh Laurie, who plays her husband in The Night Manager (2016), played old university friends in Peter's Friends (1992).
The scene in which the Protagonist (John David Washington) is tortured in the middle of a freight rail yard was filmed at Telliskivi Creative City in Tallinn, Estonia, on the border between Tallinn's Old Town and the Kalamaja District.
The scene set at Shipley's Auction House was actually filmed at the National Liberal Club in London. It had previously appeared in other productions including The Elephant Man (1980), Highlander (1986), Brazil (1985) and Trance (2013). It also provided the exterior of the London entrance of the 'Sanctum Sanctorum' in Doctor Strange (2016).
The city skyline seen on the poster of Tenet belongs to Guangzhou, China. However, no part of Tenet was filmed in China.
The Cannon Hall School, where the Protagonist (John David Washington) first scrutinizes Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) as she meets his son Max, was not actually filmed at a school; instead it was shot at a mansion in Hampstead known as Cannon Hall. This was once the home of actor-manager Gerald du Maurier. It had previously appeared on screen as Keir Dullea's house in Otto Preminger's black comedy Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965).
Actor Jeremy Theobald appears briefly as a butler alongside Sir Michael Caine in the restaurant scene. He had previously starred in director Sir Christopher Nolan's film Follow (1998) as well as played a small role in Batman Begins (2005). He also appeared in Nolan's short films Larceny (1996) and Doodlebug (1997).
Clémence Poésy was heavily pregnant with her second child during filming. As a result, her character appears for only 5 minutes, and most of her shots show only her upper half.
The film shares the same scene as the James Bond short story 'The Hildebrand Rarity', written by Ian Fleming and first published in 1960. In both the film and the story, a wealthy and cruel yacht owner tries to discipline his wife with a whip. In the story, the husband uses a stingray's tail, while in the film a belt with a cufflink inserted into one of the holes is used. Director Sir Christopher Nolan is a huge James Bond fan.
Sir Kenneth Branagh is working with Sir Christopher Nolan for the second time after Dunkirk (2017).
Christopher Nolan stated that while taking a Peloton cycling class at home, Peloton instructor Jenn Sherman said she had watched this film and hated it, exclaiming "That's two hours of my life I'll never get back!" Nolan said he did not realize he was in the class and later apologized when he found out.
It has been included in "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," edited by Steven Schneider.
Getting into arms dealer Priya's (Dimple Kapadia) penthouse at the top of Neelam Shree Vardhan Tower on Bhulabhai Desai Road (formerly known as old Warden Road) in Oomer Park required ingenuity. It is located in an area called Breach Candy, a newly developed upscale residential and commercial district in South Mumbai.
This is the second time Robert Pattinson and Clémence Poésy have worked together. They had previously appeared opposite each other fifteen years earlier in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Interestingly, Sir Kenneth Branagh (Sator) also appeared in a Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).
In Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), actor Sir Kenneth Branagh plays a Russian who wants to destroy the world through the collapse of the global economy. In this film, Branagh plays a Russian who wants to destroy the world through global temporal collapse. Additionally, in both films his character is revealed to have a terminal illness, which forms part of the motivation for his actions.
Marks's costume designer Jeffrey Kurland is working on a Sir Christopher Nolan film for the third time after Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017).
In the newspaper Priya shows the Protagonist, there is a smaller article about motorcycle helmets. Its visible content appears to be derailed as follows: "Elements were worshipped as well as the genies of the elements, and the sun, rivers and even the early dawn were pitapatted as spiritual existences as well as material existences. Agni was the fire god who illuminated the universe and the… at home illuminated the world. Varuna… was water and the ruler… the seas". Perhaps, in relation to India, this is a subtle reference by the director to the Hindu / Sanatana Dharma concept of worshipping the elements.
Elizabeth Debicki (Kat), Martin Donovan (Fay) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Ives) have all appeared in Marvel films. Debicki appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 (2017), Donovan in Ant-Man (2015), and Taylor-Johnson played Pietro Maximoff in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Additionally, Sir Kenneth Branagh (Sator) directed another Marvel film, Thor (2011).
This is Martin Donovan's second collaboration with director Sir Christopher Nolan. They had previously worked together on Insomnia (2002).
It is Sir Christopher Nolan's fourth film not to be included in the IMDb Top 250, after Follow (1998), Insomnia (2002) and Dunkirk (2017).
Many scenes required the actors to rehearse their movements both forward and backward so that the inverted sequences would look physically convincing.
Clemence Poésy and Robert Pattinson had worked together 15 years earlier on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).
Sir Michael Caine and Clémence Poésy had previously worked together on Last Love (2013).
The score was composed by Ludwig Göransson; this marks the first time a Christopher Nolan film has not featured music by Hans Zimmer since The Prestige.
Rather than creating the effect entirely with CGI, Christopher Nolan filmed many large-scale action scenes practically, including the crash of a real Boeing 747.
Kenneth Branagh's face does not appear until (exactly) the 53rd minute of the film, despite his character being mentioned several times beforehand.