How did Christopher Nolan build a black hole in Interstellar? Details revisited

When we are talking about a Christopher Nolan film, getting surprised isn't surprising. He turns things up a notch, something he also did in his sci-fi epic Interstellar (2014), where people are just looking down and worrying about their place in the dirt.

There are so many things worth discussing in the film: the plot, the visuals, and the 500-acre cornfield that Nolan later sold. But it was the creation of the iconic black hole Gargantua that pulled the fans closer, though not enough so they could fall in it like Cooper (Matthew McConaughey).

For the film, they had to bring as accurate a visual of Gargantua as possible, and with the help of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne and other members who worked on the film's visual effects, it became possible. Nothing like this has ever been done in a sci-fi, or any, movie before. Thorne said of it,

"Neither wormholes nor black holes have been depicted in any hollywood movie in the way that they actually would appear. This is the first time the depiction began with Einstein general relativity equations."

However, after some dedicated discussions and hard work, they were able to bring this giant black hole to life.

A lot of math was involved in creating Gargantua for Interstellar

Creation of Gargantua wouldn't have been possible without the inputs of Kip Thorne. (Image via Warner Bros.)

If we are seeing that large black hole Gargantua in Interstellar the way it is today, it is all thanks to those mathematical equations that Kip Thorne shared that made the creation of Gargantua possible.

VFF Supervisor on the film, Paul Franklin, knew that the software used in such processes can bend the rules of reality pretty accurately, but the film needed to be more real science than fiction. So, Thorne gave them what was more of a research project in itself so the software can create some physics that governs the real world.

Franklin's team also worked on their rendering software to adjust to the requirements and the results that came afterwards were just mind-blowing. According to WIRED, Franklin said,

"Science fiction always wants to dress things up, like it's never happy with the ordinary universe. What we were getting out of the software was compelling straight off."

Though this wasn't enough. A CG supervisor, Eugénie von Tunzelmann, who worked on the film, said that they "had to write a completely new renderer" to pull this off.

What's the significance of Gargantua in Interstellar?

The black hole Gargantua is at the center of Interstellar. The 12 potentially habitable planets that can save humanity are near it. The human race is on the verge of extinction in the story and some scientists are finding ways to shift people to some planet that can sustain life.

However, going near Gargantua is a bit risky because of time dilation. In the scene where Cooper decides to go for the slingshot maneuver, it costs him 51 years. Though his efforts aren't wasted, and humanity is eventually saved. But by the time he is saved and meets his daughter Murph, she is older than him.

For its visuals, Interstellar won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 87th Academy Awards, beating movies like Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and more.