People convinced Friends gave Christopher Nolan the plot idea for Interstellar

The man behind Oppenheimer, behind The Dark Knight, behind Inception, apparently a man who gets his inspiration from Friends.

Well, it could seem like quite a stretch, but people reckon there’s at least a possibility Christopher Nolan got one of his plot ideas from the sitcom.

Yep, some fans think the legendary filmmaker may have struck inspiration after watching an episode of Friends.

And for none other than the 2014 sci-fi, Interstellar.

The synopsis for Nolan’s movie starring the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and Timothée Chalamet reads: “When Earth becomes uninhabitable in the future, a farmer and ex-NASA pilot, Joseph Cooper, is tasked to pilot a spacecraft, along with a team of researchers, to find a new planet for humans.”

Ranking at number one on UNILAD’s list of the creator’s best movies, some users over on Reddit actually say they’re ‘pretty sure’ he got the idea from Joey Tribbiani.

In The One with the Screamer, the character stars in a pretty terrible play where he heads off to space, not to return for many, many years.

NBC

Users shared a clip of Joey’s stage character, which, with some imagination, does share some similarities to the plot of Interstellar.

His character says in the play: “I’m gonna go to Blargon 7 in search of alternative fuels.

“But when I return, 200 years from now, you’ll be long gone but I won’t have aged at all.

“So you tell your great-great-grandaughter to look me up… because Adrienne, baby, I’m gonna want to meet her.”

Ok, yes, it’s a push. But fans commented: “That EXACT thought went through my head when I watched that episode.”

Paramount Pictures

And another added: “I thought the same thing when I watched this episode.”

Obviously, the original post is a joke but you’ve got to laugh at the irony of how similar this 90’s Friends scene is to the Nolan blockbuster.

Turns out, however, he was actually inspired by something much older than Friends; George Lucas’ first Star Wars from 1977.

Nolan told NPR he was influenced by earlier space movies: “I mean, there's a golden age of blockbusters that I grew up in: You had Lucas, you also had [Steven] Spielberg, you know, Close Encounters [of the Third Kind], these films. They really spoke to me about the potential of what movies can do in terms of taking an audience on an adventure.”

So less Friends, more lightsabers and Death Stars - got it.

Topics: Christopher Nolan, Conspiracy Theories, Entertainment, Film and TV, Friends, Reddit

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_