Emma Thomas

Emma Thomas Nolan (born 9 December 1971) is a British film producer best known for her creative partnership with her husband, Christopher Nolan.

She has produced all of Nolan's feature films, which have grossed more than $6 billion worldwide, and co-runs the production company Syncopy Inc. Thomas has received several accolades throughout her career, including one Academy Award, one British Academy Film Award, and one Golden Globe Award for producing the biographical thriller Oppenheimer (2023).

Emma Thomas was born on 9 December 1971 in London.

Her father worked in the Civil Service, and she spent part of her childhood living in the Middle East.

She originally intended to follow her father into the civil service field after completing her education.

Thomas studied ancient history at University College London (UCL).

She lived in the same residence hall as filmmaker Christopher Nolan (her boyfriend and future husband), whom she met during her first week at university.

Nolan introduced Thomas to the UCL Union's Film Society, where they arranged feature film screenings in 35mm and used the proceeds to produce newsreels and short films.

Thomas credits Nolan and the Film Society for sparking her interest in filmmaking, and would provide refreshments for the crew members of her partner's short films.

Grossing over $730 million worldwide against a budget of $165 million, Interstellar received five nominations at the 87th Academy Awards, winning Best Visual Effects.

Earlier in the year, she executive-produced Wally Pfister's directorial debut Transcendence.

Thomas was credited as an associate producer of Memento, which received critical acclaim and several accolades, including two nominations at the 74th Academy Awards.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Thomas worked as a script supervisor for numerous projects.

She completed an unpaid internship with Working Title Films before working as a runner and receptionist.

Thomas had a "very awkward" conversation with her father upon her graduation from university, in which he tried unsuccessfully to persuade her into working in civil service.

After earning her bachelor's degree in ancient history, Thomas was promoted to a production coordinator for Working Title Films.

The Dark Knight received eight nominations at the 81st Academy Awards, winning Best Sound Editing for Richard King and Best Supporting Actor; a posthumous accolade for Heath Ledger.

The film's failure to capture a Best Picture nomination garnered media criticism, resulting in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences increasing their Best Picture nominees from five to ten; a decision coined by the media as "The Dark Knight Rule".

The first film that she produced was the short feature Doodlebug (1997), which depicts a man anxiously trying to kill a bug-like creature in his flat.

She and Nolan created the short film on 16mm film during their time at university.

After plans to create a full-length feature with Larry Mahoney were scrapped, Thomas produced her first feature Following (1998) with Nolan and Jeremy Theobald, who stars as an unemployed young writer who follows strangers in London in hopes of receiving material for his first novel, but is drawn into a criminal underworld where he fails to keep his distance.

The film was conceived on a production budget of around £3,000, and was filmed on weekends over the course of a year; with scenes being rehearsed extensively to preserve film stock.

Following was positively received by film critics and won several awards at various film festivals.

Thomas pitched Nolan's screenplay for their breakthrough film Memento (2000), which follows a man with anterograde amnesia who uses photographs, notes, and tattoos to hunt his wife's murderer, to Aaron Ryder of Newmarket Films, who lauded the script.

The film was given a budget of $4.5 million and was distributed by Newmarket to 500 theatres in the United States after it was rejected by other studios, who feared that it would not attract a wide audience.

Six critics listed it as one of the best films of the 2000s.

She also assisted director Stephen Frears during the production of High Fidelity (2000).

On 27 February 2001, Thomas and Nolan founded the production company Syncopy Inc. She co-produced the psychological thriller Insomnia (2002), after filmmaker Steven Soderbergh recommended Nolan to Warner Bros. to direct a remake of the 1997 Norwegian thriller of the same name.

The film follows two Los Angeles detectives who were sent to investigate the murder of a teenager in a northern Alaskan town.

It received positive reviews from critics and grossed $113 million against a budget of $43 million.

Thomas produced The Dark Knight trilogy with Nolan, Charles Roven and Larry Franco; which consisted of Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

Collectively, the films grossed over $2.4 billion worldwide, and is considered to be one of the greatest trilogies ever made.

During production of The Dark Knight trilogy, Thomas produced The Prestige (2006), an adaptation of the Christopher Priest novel about two rival 19th-century magicians, and Inception (2010), an original film about a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets.

Both films were critically and commercially successful: The Prestige earned over $109 million on a budget of $40 million, despite receiving a bleak box office prognosis, while Inception grossed $839 million worldwide against a budget of $160 million.

Thomas received several accolades for her work on the latter film, including nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Film.

Through her production company, Thomas formed a joint venture with Zeitgeist Films to release Blu-ray versions of Elena (2011) and a compilation of animated short films by the Quay brothers.

She serves on the Motion Picture & Television Fund Board of Directors.

She and Nolan produced Zack Snyder's Man of Steel (2013), which received mixed reviews and grossed more than $660 million worldwide against a budget of $220 million.

Thomas' next feature Interstellar (2014), which she produced with Nolan and Lynda Obst, follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for humankind.

It received positive reviews from film critics and was praised by astronauts for its scientific accuracy and portrayal of theoretical astrophysics.