Roland Joffé

Roland Joffe insisted that an unknown performer be cast as Oppenheimer in Fat Man and Little Boy. He had taken the project over together with the producer Tony Garnett. The part went to Dwight Schultz, who was playing the same character on stage at Williamstown; the studio resisted hiring him, and Schultz joined the cast only a day before shooting began, once Paul Newman's approval had come through. The film could not be made at Los Alamos: by production notes in the AMPAS library the surroundings of the real facility had filled up with modern buildings and would not serve, so Durango in Mexico was chosen for having similar terrain, and all the shooting but one week outside Mexico City was done there.