"he wanted to do it for real" nato secretary general recalls of his meeting with esteemed director christopher nolan. "i asked why not just use cgi? and he looked at me as if i had called his mother a harlot. he leaned forward and put his fingers in my face in the shape of a camera lens. "picture this," he says, and then proceeded to describe, in vivid detail, what the explosion of the nuclear device would look like. it sounded incredible.

the secretary paused to look out the window, lost in the memory. "you know what he tells me next? 'i'm doing this with or without you, chuck.' he knows my name isn't chuck. he also knows there's no way i'll say no. so i told him i at least want to be there in person, for national security reasons. he just smiled and left."

he began to cough violently so our interview was put on pause for a while. when he returned, a glass of water in hand, he was grinning like a schoolboy. "it was incredible. the set he built... straight out of the history books. when that bomb went off, i - it was like looking at god."

he paused to cough some more, and i offered some tissues. he wiped his mouth and emptied half the glass. "everyone on set was exposed to thirty times the recommended lifetime exposure to radiation. undoubtedly, we'll all be dead in ten years. but it was worth it. it was the most beautiful thing i ever did see."

oppenheimer opens exclusively in theatres june 30.