At the top of his game
New Zealand Listener|April 13-19, 2024
After his big brother’s atomic bomb movie, Jonah Nolan blows up the world in Fallout, another milestone ina screen career he says he owes to reading the classics while living in New Zealand.
RUSSELL BAILLIE
At the top of his game

Jonathan “Jonah” Nolan has quite the CV. Yes, he’s been a screenwriter on his brother Christopher Nolan’s films – his short story Memento Mori inspired his older sibling’s 2000 breakthrough Memento. He wrote The Prestige and was a writer on the Batman Dark Knight trilogy, and Interstellar. In television, he created the sci-fi surveillance drama Person of Interest and, with his wife, Lisa Joy, the big-budget HBO dystopian sci-fi western Westworld.

Also on his resume, somewhere, is “dairy farmer, Kaipara, New Zealand”.

On a Zoom call from Los Angeles, the London-born, US-raised Nolan tells the Listener he spent a college gap year on a cousin’s farm near Warkworth. If it wasn’t for the rural experience, all those screen credits might not exist.

He was halfway through a degree in international relations at a college in Chicago and decided it wasn’t the right path for him. Assisting with milking 800 head of dairy cows might help him figure himself out. It wasn’t the early mornings with the Holsteins, though, that did it, but the farmhouse book collection.

“It was a library of classics. They had the farmhouse [where] each book you opened, the spine kind of cracked. And I read Moby-Dick, which I’ve never been inclined to read otherwise. And I was like, ‘Oh, this is the shit.’ It’s a very cinematic book, much more cinematic than I expected. And I was like, ‘This is what I should be doing.’”

He went back to college in Washington DC, majored in writing, then a few years later, found himself jointly nominated with his brother for a best original screenplay Oscar for Memento.

Denne historien er fra April 13-19, 2024-utgaven av New Zealand Listener.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra April 13-19, 2024-utgaven av New Zealand Listener.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA NEW ZEALAND LISTENERSe alt
First-world problem
New Zealand Listener

First-world problem

Harrowing tales of migrants attempting to enter the US highlight the political failure to fully tackle the problem.

time-read
3 mins  |
September 9, 2024
Applying intelligence to AI
New Zealand Listener

Applying intelligence to AI

I call it the 'Terminator Effect', based on the premise that thinking machines took over the world.

time-read
2 mins  |
September 9, 2024
Nazism rears its head
New Zealand Listener

Nazism rears its head

Smirky Höcke, with his penchant for waving with a suspiciously straight elbow and an open palm, won't get to be boss of either state.

time-read
2 mins  |
September 9, 2024
Staying ahead of the game
New Zealand Listener

Staying ahead of the game

Will the brave new world of bipartisanship that seems to be on offer with an Infrastructure Commission come to fruition?

time-read
4 mins  |
September 9, 2024
Grasping the nettle
New Zealand Listener

Grasping the nettle

Broccoli is horrible. It smells, when being cooked, like cat pee.

time-read
3 mins  |
September 9, 2024
Hangry? Eat breakfast
New Zealand Listener

Hangry? Eat breakfast

People who don't break their fast first thing in the morning report the least life satisfaction.

time-read
3 mins  |
September 9, 2024
Chemical reaction
New Zealand Listener

Chemical reaction

Nitrates in processed meats are well known to cause harm, but consumed from plant sources, their effect is quite different.

time-read
4 mins  |
September 9, 2024
Me and my guitar
New Zealand Listener

Me and my guitar

Australian guitarist Karin Schaupp sticks to the familiar for her Dunedin concerts.

time-read
2 mins  |
September 9, 2024
Time is on my side
New Zealand Listener

Time is on my side

Age does not weary some of our much-loved musicians but what keeps them on the road?

time-read
7 mins  |
September 9, 2024
The kids are not alright
New Zealand Listener

The kids are not alright

Nuanced account details how China's blessed generation has been replaced by one consumed by fear and hopelessness.

time-read
4 mins  |
September 9, 2024