How Christopher Nolan grew his own cornfield for Interstellar

If you’ve seen Interstellar, you probably remember the stunning scenes of Matthew McConaughey driving through a vast cornfield with a mountain looming in the distance. But did you know that the cornfield was not a CGI effect, but a real one that Christopher Nolan planted himself?

It all started in 2014, when Nolan was looking for a location to shoot his sci-fi epic. He had a very specific vision in mind: he wanted his protagonist to live in a farmhouse surrounded by corn, and he wanted a mountain to be visible on the horizon. He thought it would create a contrast between the earthy and the cosmic, and also reflect the theme of the movie: the struggle between staying and leaving.

But there was a problem: there was no such place in the world that had both a cornfield and a mountain nearby. And Nolan was not willing to compromise his vision. He didn’t want to use CGI, because he thought it would look fake and ruin the realism of the movie. He also didn’t want to use a different crop, because he thought corn was symbolic of America and its history.

So he decided to do something crazy: he decided to grow his own cornfield.