The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with Oppenheimer editor Jennifer Lame to discuss her experience working with Christopher Nolan. She pinpoints Nolan’s “weird magic trick” on set that might surprise fans of his work. She also explains why Robert Downey Jr.’s character, Lewis Strauss, grew on her and didn’t feel like a villain.

Whether you know her name or not, you’ve certainly seen editor Jennifer Lame’s work on the big screen. She edited Hereditary for Ari Aster, Marriage Story for Noah Baumbach, and two films for Christopher Nolan, his 2020 release Tenet and his latest film, the potential Oscar juggernaut, Oppenheimer. In fact, Lame is a predicted Academy Award nominee for her work on the film, so once that’s made official, there will be no excuse not to know her name going forward.

While speaking with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff for Oppenheimer’s home release, Lame discussed her experience reuniting with Nolan for another wildly ambitious production. She noted how Nolan’s specificity with his work and the fact that his process is so finely tuned actually created a relaxed vibe on set. She also talks about how she approached her work on Oppenheimer in a rather unusual fashion due to joining the project much later than preferred.

You can watch the full interview in the video at the top of this article, or you can read the transcript below to find out which project on her filmography Lame would dub the most challenging to edit, what the directors she’s worked with have in common, if she’ll be working on more horror movies in the future, and which Oppenheimer character resonated most with her in the edit.

Oppenheimer The story of American scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and his role in the development of the atomic bomb. Release Date July 21, 2023 Rating R Runtime 181 Main Genre Biography

PERRI NEMIROFF: A big broad question to start. Is Oppenheimer the most challenging feature you’ve ever had to edit, and if so, what was number two?

JENNIFER LAME: No, definitely not. I would say Tenet was probably one of the most challenging ones.

Because of the action?

LAME: Yeah, just the action. Number two, maybe Hereditary because I was just nervous because I had never done that kind of genre. It was kind of me entering into this kind of a genre thing, even though it wasn’t genre in the end, I think.

Did that leave you with the itch to edit more horror movies?

LAME: No, definitely not. And I think what was so great working with Ari [Aster] is that he didn’t want a horror editor, so he definitely put me at ease with that, but I still felt some sort of pressure, but it was great.

Christopher Nolan Sets Are Surprisingly Relaxed
Image via Universal Pictures

You’ve worked with a number of incredible directors. Do you notice any shared traits among the directing greats? But then also, can you pinpoint something about the process of collaborating with Christopher Nolan that’s unique to him?

LAME: I have gotten the chance to work with a lot of writer-directors. That’s been kind of a theme for me. I think it kind of happened that way, but now I pursue it because I quite like it. So that’s a common trait. And obviously writer-directors are very passionate. They have that kind of auteur thing. I just find it really engaging and exciting. They’re all different. [Laughs] I think what’s so great about collaborating with [Chris] and what makes it special is that there’s both this driving force of schedule and time. Obviously he’s been doing it for so long and he does it so excellently that it’s so fine-tuned, but there’s also this kind of relaxed vibe as well, which is such an interesting thing that I never would have thought.

How does he do that? I need that in my own life.

LAME: I don’t know! I really don’t know how he does it, but it is incredible. We have such a specific schedule and we have all these mini-deadlines and things like that, but in between all of those, I feel like we have all the time in the world to kind of play around and relax. It’s such a weird trick. I don’t know how he does it. It’s like a weird magic trick.

Speaking of playing around, I know he’s a very specific director and writes in a way where he knows what’s going to work in the edit, so how does that playing around come in? Is there any particular scene where you thought the creative possibilities were wider than others?

LAME: I think what’s so great about him is, yeah, his scripts are like a blueprint. They’re so fine-tuned. The way he writes, by the time I read it, there’s very little editing to be done. It’s so specific, but what’s fun about that is, again, it’s kind of what I was saying before, it’s so structured but then he is so open to ideas of the ways we can make it interesting and use editing to make it interesting within that structure. So it both feels incredibly structured and incredibly creative. Again, weird magic trick. I don’t understand.

Image via Universal

Do you have a specific example of that? Something where what he had on the page would have worked but because you have that editor’s eye and insight, you were able to make it more interesting via that?

LAME: I don’t know about more interesting because it’s such a collaboration. I don’t think there’s something where I’d be like, “Well, I did this,” because that’s not in my nature and that’s not how I see my job.

You’re such a good collaborator.

LAME: [Laughs] I think what’s so fun, for example, the “Can You Hear the Music” montage. We worked on that constantly, over and over again, but in this way that was fun. We would work on it and then we would both be like, “Let’s move on and we’ll come back to it.” And we kept doing that and we kept screening it. We both kind of knew it wasn’t there, but we weren’t being hard on ourselves or it. And then one Saturday afternoon, we really just played around and had these ideas, and really mixed it up and totally did something different, and it was great! So, I think, yeah, on the page it was very specific, even down to some images, but I think he was fine to just try different images we had and just capture the essence of what he wanted. But he was open to totally playing around with it constantly, so it was so fun.

That is an exceptional sequence.

LAME: Yeah, I love that sequence.

Between your editing and also the score — that’s the particular track I can’t stop listening to.

LAME: Oh my god, it’s one of the most incredible pieces of music. Ludwig [Göransson] did such a fabulous job. His wife, Serena [McKinney], who plays the violin a lot of the time, helped kind of guide the players to be able to do something like that live. It was incredible.

The Collaboration Behind ‘Oppenheimer’
Image via Universal Pictures

This is the perfect example of a movie where everyone’s delivering peak work and it all magically comes together in a way that lifts every department’s work even higher.

LAME: It was such a dream team, I have to say. I love everybody. Everyone’s so collaborative. We all know each other, which is rare. I work, obviously, in editing and certain people just work on set, but we all kind of cross paths. What a great team.

What about your team specifically? Is there anyone that you would say is an unsung hero where what they contributed is absolutely pivotal and you want to make sure more people out there know that person’s name and contribution to the film?

LAME: It can’t just be one person!

I know!

LAME: My team is quite a team, and they all do such different specific things. My first assistant, Mike Fay, was incredible. The post-producer, Tina Anderson, is incredible with what they do with the film department. The whole team. Tom, the negative cutter, he cut the film as we were screening it. There’s also a negative cutter from Paris. There’s too many people to name, but everyone has their specific thing and everyone did it with such grace and such a great attitude, which I was really impressed with.

‘Oppenheimer’ Editor on Strauss: “I Don’t See Him as the Villain”
Image via Universal Pictures

Here’s another unfair question because I’m going to ask you to pick a favorite in a sense. Going into editing the film, is there any particular character you were most excited to edit for, but then ultimately, is there another character that caught you by surprise in terms of how creatively fulfilling it was to cut their scenes?

LAME: Obviously, going into it, Cillian’s performance was just unbelievable. You can’t even get over it. And constantly during the editing process, both me and Chris would just be wowed by all the things that he did that we didn’t even see. It was just incredible. But one of my favorite characters over time, and I didn’t necessarily think it when I was reading the script, but I just found such depth and kind of sadness and relatability was Strauss, which is Robert Downey Jr.’s character. I quite love him, and I find that scene at the end where he hits his leg and he asks, “Who are the holdouts?” I just want to cry. Like, I actually feel really emotional for him. I don’t see him as the villain, necessarily, even though I know it’s easy to see him that way. I developed a huge soft spot, and that, I’m sure, speaks to Robert Downey Jr.’s performance, and writing and everything … But he also kind of has to feel like a villain for a lot of the movie, too. It’s just such brilliant writing, directing, acting. I just really fell for his character.

What about going forward now? Is there a new tool in your editing toolkit, so to speak, that you know you can credit to Oppenheimer that you are eager to put to use on a future project?

LAME: I don’t know if there’s a tool, but one of the interesting things that happened on this film is I was on another previous film, Wakanda Forever, and I came on late to this movie. Typically, editors, I think, don’t like that. We like to be there from the beginning of the first day of shooting so we can cut as they go. It’s kind of overwhelming to come in. I came in a week or so, right after they wrapped, and then you have all the footage, which can be overwhelming. I asked a couple of people who had done it before and everyone was like, “Don’t do it. Or if you have to do it, get ready.” But I actually found a way to approach it and use it to my advantage. It was a good lesson for me and a tool in my toolbox, of like, okay, I can use difficult, weird situations to my advantage and figure out a good way to work around it.

You have a fresh set of eyes, too. It’s kind of nice.

LAME: Yeah, exactly! It was kind of nice to not be there and not know anything for once. I mean, I don’t think that’s always the case, but I figured out a way that I could make it work.

Looking for more Oppenheimer conversations? Catch Perri’s chat with Christopher Nolan below:

Oppenheimer is available to buy or rent on digital.

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