Interstellar: From Cornfields to the Edge of Space
In Christopher Nolan's 2014 film Interstellar, Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, a farmer who used to be a pilot. With Earth dying, Cooper joins a space mission to find a new home for the human race. But that means leaving behind his daughter, Murph, who wants her dad to stay.
But before the production could send anyone across the universe, it had to grow some corn. Real corn, in a real field. The movie's trip from that farm to distant planets would involve a glacier, enormous model spaceships, a puppeteer, and a London church organ.
Before the Launch
Producer Lynda Obst and scientist Kip Thorne came up with the original idea. Steven Spielberg was first set to direct, with Jonathan Nolan writing the script. When Spielberg left the project, Jonathan's brother Christopher took over and rewrote his brother's script.
Here's how the film made its way to theaters:
- August 6, 2013: Filming began in Alberta, Canada, before moving to Iceland and Los Angeles.
- November 5, 2014: The movie opened in select US theaters using film projectors.
- November 7, 2014: Its wider US release followed.
Spoiler Note: The making-of details below discuss scenes from throughout the film, including the watch's role.
Growing Cooper's World
Cooper's home needed to feel like a real family home, even as the world around it was failing. Nathan Crowley, who designed the film's sets, had his team build the farmhouse on a ranch near Longview, Alberta. They also arranged for 500 acres of corn to be planted.
Nolan wanted the field, home, and distant mountains in one real landscape. Building the house there meant the camera could show them together. The crew had less than six months to get the crop ready.
Alberta supplied more than the farm. Seaman Stadium hosted the baseball game interrupted by dust, while Fort Macleod supplied the town streets. Here's where those Alberta filming locations and the other real places fit into the story:
| Real Location | Region and Country | What It Supplied |
|---|---|---|
| Ranch near Longview | Alberta, Canada | Cooper's farmhouse and cornfields |
| Seaman Stadium, Okotoks | Alberta, Canada | Baseball sequence |
| Main Street, Fort Macleod | Alberta, Canada | Town dust storm |
| Svínafellsjökull Glacier | Vatnajökull region, Iceland | Frozen-planet landscape |
| Sony Pictures soundstages, Culver City | California, United States | Studio sets |
Fort Macleod looked right for the scene and had room for the crew. Its historic buildings, parking lots, and storage space helped make the shoot possible. Large fans pushed movie dust around McConaughey's truck on Main Street.
That dust had a surprisingly ordinary starting point: ground-up cardboard. The effects team used a material called C-90 to fill the air. The storm was staged, but the actors and camera were inside it.
Iceland Becomes Another Planet
The astronauts find Dr. Mann, played by Matt Damon, on a frozen planet. That icy landscape is actually in Iceland. Filming locations included Svínafellsjökull, a glacier flowing out of Iceland's Vatnajökull ice cap.
Iceland also became the planet covered in water. For those scenes, the crew had to move the Ranger spacecraft into shallow water. Getting a spaceship across that remote, wet landscape was a job of its own.
Bad weather forced the crew to evacuate base camp and move to a hotel. The wooden parts of Crowley's glacier set also melted the ice they touched. As the ice pulled back, his team had to keep adding to the set. Even the ground refused to stay put.
Spaceships and Robots Within Reach
The circular Endurance spacecraft looks enormous on screen, but one of its filming models measured about 14 feet across. That still takes some room.
New Deal Studios built models of the Endurance, Ranger, and Lander spacecraft. The Ranger and Lander also had life-size versions for filming. Shots of the Endurance in space combined footage of the model with computer effects. The versions had to match so the ship looked the same from shot to shot.
At Sony's studios, a moving platform could tilt and shift the ships. Images projected outside their windows gave the cast something to look at and created light and reflections on the set. Some of those images stayed in the finished movie; computer artists replaced others.
TARS, the blocky robot on the mission, was on set, too. Bill Irwin supplied his voice and moved the robot puppets. That gave the actors a moving scene partner to talk to.
Effects artists later removed puppeteers and control rods from the footage, hiding the people and parts that moved the puppets. They used computer versions of the robots for moves the props couldn't perform, such as the fast water rescue by CASE, another robot on the mission.
Nolan used a similar approach for Inception's rotating hallway, giving the performers a real, moving set to work in.
Bring a favorite crew member to your desk or shelf with this TARS display model, complete with a named base.
- Add an Interstellar reference that suits a desk as well as a movie shelf.
- Create a finished display with the included named base.
- Enjoy the robot's mechanical details up close between movie rewatches.
Giving a Black Hole Its Shape
Gargantua is the movie's black hole, a region of space from which even light cannot escape. The effects company Double Negative used calculations from scientist Kip Thorne to work out how light would bend near it.
Gravity bends the light from the glowing ring of material around the black hole. That's why the ring seems to curve above and below the dark center. The team explained its work in a 2015 scientific paper.
Extreme gravity makes time pass more slowly for the astronauts than for people on Earth. This is time dilation, and it turns delays into lost time with their families.
Some details were changed for the audience. As that glowing material spins, the side moving toward us should look brighter than the side moving away. The movie leaves out that difference.
A wormhole would be a shortcut between distant parts of space, though we don't know if such a shortcut could exist. The filmmakers also used their imaginations for the trip through it. Real science helped shape the movie, but that doesn't mean every part of the story could happen.
This official featurette looks at the work behind Gargantua:
A Small Story Becomes a Huge Sound
Composer Hans Zimmer began with something much smaller than a space epic. Nolan gave him a page about a father and son and asked him to spend one day writing music for it. He didn't tell Zimmer it was for a space movie.
That little story was about a father and son, even though the film would center on Cooper and his daughter. Zimmer wrote a personal piece with piano and organ. Only then did Nolan reveal the enormous space adventure he had in mind.
To record the organ music, the team went to Temple Church in London, England, United Kingdom. Organist Roger Sayer played the organ music on the church's Harrison & Harrison organ.
For a short listen, here is WaterTower Music's official soundtrack recording of “Cornfield Chase”:
The People Across the Years
Time changes the family on screen, with Mackenzie Foy and Jessica Chastain playing Murph at different ages. Timothée Chalamet and Casey Affleck play the younger and older Tom, Cooper's son.
Every filming age below uses August 6, 2013, the day the production began. That may differ from an actor's first day on set. The last column shows their ages on October 31, 2026.
| Performer | Role | Date of Birth | Age on August 6, 2013 | Age on October 31, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew McConaughey | Cooper | November 4, 1969 | 43 | 56 |
| Anne Hathaway | Astronaut Amelia Brand | November 12, 1982 | 30 | 43 |
| Jessica Chastain | Adult Murph | March 24, 1977 | 36 | 49 |
| Mackenzie Foy | Young Murph | November 10, 2000 | 12 | 25 |
| Timothée Chalamet | Young Tom | December 27, 1995 | 17 | 30 |
| Casey Affleck | Adult Tom | August 12, 1975 | 37 | 51 |
| Michael Caine | Scientist Professor Brand | March 14, 1933 | 80 | 93 |
| John Lithgow | Donald | October 19, 1945 | 67 | 81 |
| Bill Irwin | TARS: voice and puppetry | April 11, 1950 | 63 | 76 |
| Matt Damon | Dr. Mann | October 8, 1970 | 42 | 56 |
Christopher Nolan's Reported Deal
Nolan's reported deal guaranteed him $20 million.
The deal also included 20% of the gross, a share of the movie's income.
The word “against” means the $20 million was an advance on that 20% share, not a bonus on top of it.
If his share grew past $20 million, he collected the difference. If it fell short, he kept the $20 million anyway.
The report does not say what he earned in the end.
Prices have gone up since 2014. The $20 million he was guaranteed back then equals about $28.5 million in September 2026 money.
That figure comes from the US consumer price index for 2014 and September 2026.
A Small Watch With a Big Role
Cooper gives Murph a watch, then later uses its seconds hand to send her a message in Morse code. Something she can hold becomes a link to the father who left.
Ritchie Kremer was in charge of the film's props. His team fitted hidden cables to make the watch hand move for the camera. Nolan operated the rig himself for a close-up.
Hamilton made the original watch for the film, then released the 42mm Khaki Field Murph in 2019 for fans to buy. That version adds Morse-code lettering for “Eureka” on its seconds hand. The original movie prop did not have that detail.
- Leave it off your wrist for up to 80 hours when fully wound.
- Read the time in low light with luminous markings.
- Wear the design of Murph's watch, which carries her father's message in Interstellar.
Ready to revisit the mission? Try the Interstellar quiz and see which details stayed with you.
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