David Baddiel questions Cillian Murphy casting in Oppenheimer

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy David Baddiel has questioned the casting of Cillian Murphy as Jewish theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s film. In her four-star review of Nolan’s film, The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “ feared deeply, as a Jewish man, about what would happen if the Nazis were to develop a weapon of such deadly capability.” The casting decision was also highlighted in The Guardian’s review, where Peter Bradshaw noted that “Nolan, rightly or wrongly, uses non-Jewish actors for Oppenheimer and Einstein, two of the most famous Jewish people in history and in fact doesn’t quite get to grips with the antisemitism that Oppenheimer faced as an assimilated secular American Jew”. open image in gallery Baddiel has previously criticised non-Jewish actors playing Jewish roles However, historians have noted that the physicist faced antisemitism throughout his life and would often deny his Jewish heritage. Biographer Ray Monk, the author of Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “To the outside world, he was always known as a German Jew, and he always insisted that he was neither German nor Jewish.” In 2022, Baddiel addressed the debate about whether non-Jewish actors should play Jewish roles, following comments by Maureen Lipman that Helen Mirren should not play former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir as she is not Jewish.