Tenet has, by virtue of the COVID-19 pandemic, become the most important movie of 2020--and whether Christopher Nolan's new film can succeed at the international box office when its rollout begins on August 26 will likely be an indicator of whether or not other studio films will see cinema releases this year.

Emma Thomas, who produces Christopher Nolan's movies (and is also his wife), told The Irish Times that Tenet is their most ambitious film yet, even though the temptation is always there to go smaller rather than bigger.

"With every movie, we have the same conversation," she says.

Thomas also says that while previous Nolan films often have one scene that they know will be tricky (citing the hospital explosion from The Dark Knight), Tenet has several.

Pattinson says that he's generally paired with John David Washington, the film's main protagonist, and since the actor is an ex-NFL player he's in extremely good shape.

"Right up until the last week of the shoot, I was talking to John David and asking him some pretty fundamental questions about who my character was!

And John David was like: 'Wait, you don’t know this?' But it’s complicated

Kenneth Branagh, meanwhile, plays the film's villain, who he says is "darker than anything (he's) ever played." According to Branagh, Nolan told him to make the character "unremittingly evil." He also says that there were two scenes he filmed where he wasn't really sure what was going on--the first time that's happened in his career