Backstage with TENET stars John David Washington & Elizabeth Debecki

It’s rare that a director has his own genre associated with his work. Martin Scorcesse has his own style of films. David Lynch has his own directing flair. With the creation of Tenet, Christopher Nolan has entered that conversation. The question now is how can you blend genre’s together and still keep your distinct eye for cinema?

Tenet seeks to blend the time-altering foundation of Christopher Nolan films with the action of a spy genre similar to James Bond. That is not an easy task to accomplish. That pressure will weigh heavily on the cast and crew, visual effects artists, stunt coordinators, the list goes on and on. The main actor of the film John David Washington (Ballers and BlackKKKlansmen) spoke on the challenges of doing so.

“I had to learn how to fight both forwards and backwards. If I was dominant with my left hand, I had to be just as dominant with my right. Everything that I did moving forward, I had to do moving backwards as well”.

Washington and his co-star Robert Pattinson both spoke highly of the craft that Christopher Nolan had created. This style of filming has never been thought of let alone done before, but if the smile on Washington’s face is any indicator, Nolan was the perfect director for this cerebral blockbuster.