Trivia / Dunkirk

• Author's Saving Throw: Nolan confirming that the film will have "little dialogue" has seemed to win over people who felt Nolan's previous films relied too much on expository dialogue.
• California Doubling: Some parts of the Netherlands doubled for Dunkirk, while the real town of Dunkirk was used as well.
• Darkhorse Casting: Christopher Nolan decided to cast young and unknown actors for the beach setting after hearing first-hand accounts of the evacuation that revealed how young and inexperienced the soldiers had been.
• Dawson Casting: George is 17, while the actor who plays him, Barry Keoghan, was 23 at the time of filming.
• Dueling Works: With Darkest Hour as both films are based on the Dunkirk evacuation. However, while Dunkirk is focused on the soldiers who were evacuated from the town, Darkest Hour focuses on Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the events at home. In a way, they complement each other instead of being rival productions.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Much publicity came from Harry Styles cutting his long curly hair short for his role.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: Nolan first had the idea for the film in 1992, but sat on it until he had experience making big-budget films (he took a similar approach with Inception, but without such a long interval). Production and post-production took a fairly typical length of time for a film of this scale.
• Fake Brit: Irishmen Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan both use English accents.
• Fake Nationality: Welsh actor Aneurin Barnard plays Gibson, a French soldier disguised as a British one.
• Fake Scot: Englishman Harry Styles portrays a Scottish soldier.
• He Also Did: After over a decade of exclusively directing sci-fi and superhero films, Nolan returned to more grounded and realistic territory with this film (indeed, being a reasonably historically accurate film based on real events it's his most realistic film so far). It also contains far less dialogue than his usual dialogue-heavy films.
• Production Posse:
  • Christopher Nolan has worked with Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception. It is, however, his first film since Insomnia not to feature Michael Caine onscreen^note he does have a voice cameo however. Nolan's uncle John also played in The Dark Knight Trilogy, and has a cameo in Dunkirk as the blind old man who welcomes and congratulates British soldiers after they make it home.
  • Hans Zimmer does the music for the film, making this his sixth collaboration with Nolan.
  • Hoyte van Hoytema returns as the cinematographer, having previously worked with Nolan on Interstellar.
  • This marks the seventh time for both Lee Smith as an editor and Nathan Crowley as a production designer on Nolan's films. In a twist of surprising irony, he was also the Editor for the similarly acclaimed 1917.
  • Nolan's wife Emma Thomas produces, as with the rest of his films.
• Star-Making Role: For newcomer Fionn Whitehead. Harry Styles is already known as one of One Direction's members, but Dunkirk is his first acting role. Barry Keoghan also rose to fame with this film, along with The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
• Stunt Casting: Nolan claims that he had no idea that Harry Styles was famous in another medium before he cast him, though whether you believe that is up to you.
• Taught by Experience: When Dawson informs his son about shell shock (PTSD), he knows what he is talking about. Dawson is based upon Charles Lightoller. In case the name doesn't ring a bell, Lightoller was the senior surviving officer from the sinking of Titanic.
• Uncredited Role: Michael Caine has a voice-only role as the flight leader of the three Spitfires, which is uncredited. Note he also played an RAF fighter pilot in Battle of Britain almost 50 years earlier.
• Voice-Only Cameo: Christopher Nolan's regular collaborator Michael Caine.
• What Could Have Been: Nolan initially wanted to make the film without an actual script, using the chronology of the evacuation to make up each scene on the spot.

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