Oppenheimer adds Vikings actor to seemingly never-ending cast

Gustaf Skarsgård in Vikings — (Image credit: History Channel)

The cast of Christopher Nolan's next movie Oppenheimer continues to grow, with Gustaf Skarsgård joining the seemingly never-ending list of actors attached to the project, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Skarsgård will play Hans Bethe, a German-American nuclear physicist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in physics. Bethe was tasked by the titular J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) to lead the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project. The project is credited with developing the first atomic weapons during World War 2, which were used to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Skarsgård is best known for playing the shipbuilder Floki in the History Channel series Vikings between 2013 and 2020, as well as appearing as Karl Strand in Westworld season 2 ( a show co-created by Nolan's brother Jonathan and his sister-in-law Lisa Joy), and Merlin in the Netflix series Cursed.

Alongside Murphy and Skarsgård, the movie's A-list cast includes Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Matthew Modine, and Alden Ehrenreich.

According to Universal Studios, Oppenheimer is an "epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it." Filming is currently underway on Nolan's first movie since 2020's Tenet.

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related. I help bring you all the latest news, features, and reviews, as well as helming our Big Screen Spotlight column. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.