This ‘Oppenheimer’ Supporting Performance Deserves Recognition

The Big Picture

• Cast of Nolan’s Oppenheimer is star-studded, with Krumholtz shining in an important supporting role.
• Krumholtz disappears into the role of Isaac Rabi, showcasing his acting range and talent.
• Rabi’s loyalty to Oppenheimer adds depth and moral complexity to the film, making Krumholtz’s character crucial.

Christopher Nolan’s latest feature, the historical drama Oppenheimer is an acting ensemble tour de force, featuring a cavalcade of incredible performers throughout the film. The cast of Nolan’s Oppenheimer is huge, to put it mildly, with plenty of notable acting talents even appearing in smaller, bit parts. It would come as no surprise if high-profile actors were begging to work on Oppenheimer no matter the part. The film is nominated for 13 Academy Awards including nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted screenplay. There are a great many impressive talents throughout the film’s cast in supporting roles. However, the most underrated breakout supporting talent in the cast is none other than David Krumholtz, portraying the real-life Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Isidore Isaac Rabi, in the film.

David Krumholtz Has Had a Long and Prolific Career

David Krumholtz has been around the block a time or two. He began his career in Hollywood at a young age, appearing in supporting roles in his teens in such major films as Life With Mikey opposite Michael J. Fox; Addams Family Values for director Barry Sonnenfeld; and The Santa Clause opposite Tim Allen as Bernard the Elf, a role he reprised once again almost 30 years later for the Disney+ continuation, The Santa Clauses. He’s likely best known to television viewers as the mathematical professor Charlie Eppes on the hit procedural show Numb3rs from 2005 to 2010. Krumholtz also had many other notable film roles over the years in the Harold & Kumar films, Serenity, Hail, Caesar!, and Sausage Party.

Krumholtz’s resume defines the term “working actor,” and he has built up an eclectic list of credits over the years. His role in Oppenheimer is the culmination of his past work and appears to signify a performer ready to assume a prestige character actor phase of his career, similar to the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. If anyone has paid his dues to start receiving plum roles such as Isaac Rabi in Oppenheimer, it’s a tireless, hardworking actor such as Krumholtz because he hit it out of the park.

Krumholtz Disappears Into His Role in ‘Oppenheimer’

What is striking and surprising about David Krumholtz’s performance as Rabi in Oppenheimer is that he completely disappears into the character. While Krumholtz is always a memorable talent, with identifiable features, he is nearly unrecognizable in Oppenheimer. Something did seem oddly familiar about Rabi at first, and after realizing that it is Krumholtz in the role, it’s a gobsmacking realization. Some of the best performances are when a notable actor can provoke these types of reactions, and Krumholtz as Rabi fits the bill.

As one J. Robert Oppenheimer’s (Cillian Murphy) closest friends, colleagues, and confidantes, Krumholtz as Rabi receives a generous amount of screentime in Nolan’s film, especially in comparison to many of his other costars. Rabi is introduced early in the first act when Oppenheimer is in his 20s and still studying physics abroad. The two meet while traveling to see theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg (Matthias Schweighöfer) at a science conference in Zurich, Switzerland. The two quickly bond and form an easy friendship. Rabi is later personally requested by Oppenheimer to join his team at Los Alamos to secretly create the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project.

Krumholtz’s Character Remains Loyal to Oppenheimer

Nolan and Krumholtz depict Rabi’s unconditional friendship with Oppenheimer through a recurring action of Rabi sharing food with Oppenheimer, to make sure his friend receives some nutrition. It’s a simple pure act of kindness first shown not long after they meet while traveling together, and it’s repeated later when Rabi is brought in as a key witness at a political hearing meant to disgrace and embarrass Oppenheimer. Rabi is one of the few colleagues who remains loyal to Oppenheimer during the hearing and continues to lend him compassion when the hearing was specifically put together to tear Oppenheimer down and belittle him.

Interestingly, it’s through Isaac Rabi that the film stages a moral sounding board and divergent voice against Oppenheimer. This makes Krumholtz a crucial role since few characters voice the type of moral disagreements about building the atomic bomb as Rabi does throughout the film. Despite Rabi’s moral misgivings about building the bomb, he is convinced by Oppenheimer to join the project due to the belief that Nazi Germany was also in an arms race to build their own nuclear weapons.

Rabi was born and raised in a Polish-Jewish Orthodox family, while Oppenheimer was born to German-Jewish immigrant parents, but raised in a secular, assimilated household. While Oppenheimer is not a strictly religious Jew, it is his and Rabi’s Jewish backgrounds and Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews in the 1930s and 1940s that spurs them on to develop nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project. In a real-life interview, Rabi once revealed that “Oppenheimer was Jewish, but he wished he weren’t and tried to pretend he wasn’t.” Despite Rabi holding this view of Oppenheimer in the film, Rabi never appears to resent his friend, and when the government attempts to blacklist Oppenheimer and expose him as a Communist, Rabi remains a loyal friend.

The Quality of ‘Oppenheimer’

It’s great to see an actor such as Krumholtz, who has put in a lot of time during his career, nail such a crucial role in the film. Hopefully, this performance can earn Krumholtz other significant roles in major prestige films in the future. His performance as Isidor Isaac Rabi certainly proves he has the talent and chops to pull such a role off.

Oppenheimer is available to stream on Peacock in the U.S.

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