Christopher Nolan on How 'Star Wars' and '2001' Influenced His Space Odyssey 'Interstellar'

Christopher Nolan may be widely regarded as one of the most masterful filmmakers of our time, but he grew up idolizing Luke Skywalker just like you and me. The London-born Interstellar director, who rose to prominence with films like The Dark Knight trilogy and Inception, told us that George Lucas’s 1977 sci-fi game-changer Star Wars was the movie that made him want to get behind the camera.

Also a pivotal influence that many critics have already noted: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Nolan remembers was re-released when he was young amid the post-Star Wars pandemonium.

"My dad took me to see it on the very big screen in Leicester Square. I sat there with him, watched this imagery unfold and I remember very clearly that sense of scale, that sense of otherworldliness… you felt like you had gone across the universe to some very peculiar corner of it," he says. "And Interstellar is absolutely my attempt to try and give audiences today some of that magical sense of being immersed in a different universe.”

Back in this universe, Interstellar is in theaters now.