20 Things You Didn't Know About Interstellar

7. The Dust Storms Were Created Using Biodegradable Cardboard

Interstellar truck dust storm
Warner Bros. Pictures

Early in the movie, we learn that dust storms have been making people's lives hell, as evidenced when Cooper drives his kids through town after the baseball game.

Presumably, these storms would've been easy to create using digital effects, but Nolan being Nolan, he decided to go with a more practical approach.

In an interview to promote the film, actress Jessica Chastain discussed what it was like to film in these dusty environments, while also mentioning that the realistic look of the storms was achieved by using a biodegradable cardboard material:

"In every scene that I was outside, I was having chunks of dust tossed at my face. It was a biodegradable material that was made out of cardboard, but still not a fun thing. But I loved every minute of it."

Definitely sounds unpleasant, but also an effective way to immerse your actors in the harsh reality of this world.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!