--- description: It would be have been much darker and simpler than what you saw title: This Is How Jonathan Nolan Originally Wanted 'Interstellar' to End image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2653b6b21e34654f/6987848ef887dc66f5e8ab49/935831_full.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # This Is How Jonathan Nolan Originally Wanted _Interstellar_ to End by [Jonathon Dornbush / Entertainment Weekly](/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Jonathon Dornbush / Entertainment Weekly Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 20, 2015 5:57 PM CUT  Matthew McConaughey in INTERSTELLAR. Matthew McConaughey in INTERSTELLAR.Paramount by [Jonathon Dornbush / Entertainment Weekly](/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Jonathon Dornbush / Entertainment Weekly Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 20, 2015 5:57 PM CUT If _Interstellar_’s ending didn’t quite sit right with you, co-writer Jonathan Nolan may be able to help. As he recently revealed, the film’s original conclusion would have been much simpler—albeit way more depressing as well. Nolan detailed the screenplay’s first ending at an event ahead of the film’s Blu-ray release in Pasadena, California, alongside scientist Kip Thorne, who served as a producer and science adviser for the film. As [_Nerdist_](http://nerdist.com/jonathan-nolans-ending-to-interstellar-made-a-lot-more-sense/ "undefined") reports, Nolan told a crowd at the Caltech Jet Propulsion Lab that he originally planned a much different conclusion for Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper. In the final film, Cooper travels through the black hole Gargantua, surviving the trip and ending up in a “tesseract” space where he’s able to see—and in some bizarre ways, interact with—his past. This revelation allows him to send a Morse code message to his daughter Murph, which sets the film’s final events into motion. Nolan’s early take on the ending, however, essentially cuts Cooper off inside the black hole. His script “had the Einstien-Rosen bridge \[wormhole\] collapse when Cooper tries to send the data back.” The wormhole falling apart would have prevented Cooper from returning home or interacting with the tesseract, which, according to _Nerdist,_ was director Christopher Nolan’s idea. Instead, his journey would have ended there, with Cooper sacrificing himself in the name of his cause. This also would have prevented much of the finished film’s concluding events—Cooper’s return trip, rediscovering his daughter, and stealing a ship to search for Anne Hathaway’s Amelia Brand would never have happened. Nolan does not mention, however, whether in that original ending, the data Cooper is collecting to send back to Earth would have made it out before the collapse. Instead of this bleak finish, _Interstellar_ ends on a much more hopeful note—even if many have taken issue with how Nolan sacrifices scientific accuracy for a more emotional conclusion. _Nerdist_ has the [full report](http://nerdist.com/jonathan-nolans-ending-to-interstellar-made-a-lot-more-sense/ "undefined") of Nolan and Thorne’s talk, including discussion of some other changes from Jonathon’s original drafts to the version his brother Christopher used in the final film. _This_ [_article_](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/03/20/interstellar-alternate-ending-jonathan-nolan "undefined") _originally appeared on_ [_EW.com_](http://www.ew.com "undefined")_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3752817/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-ending/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3752817/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-ending/"},"headline":"This Is How Jonathan Nolan Originally Wanted Interstellar to End","datePublished":"2015-03-20T17:57:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T05:19:41.515Z","description":"It would be have been much darker and simpler than what you saw","url":"https://time.com/3752817/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-ending/","keywords":["movies","Space","Interstellar"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2653b6b21e34654f/6987848ef887dc66f5e8ab49/935831_full.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jonathon Dornbush / Entertainment Weekly"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2653b6b21e34654f/6987848ef887dc66f5e8ab49/935831_full.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Matthew McConaughey in INTERSTELLAR.","caption":"Matthew McConaughey in INTERSTELLAR.","creditText":"Paramount","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3752817/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-ending/","name":"This Is How Jonathan Nolan Originally Wanted Interstellar to End"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Christopher Nolan and Kip Thorne Discuss the Physics of Interstellar","description":"Director Christopher Nolan and author Kip Thorne speak to TIME's Jeffrey Kluger about the physics of 2014 blockbuster Interstellar","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JxzxbgGx/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-11-24T15:49:49.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JxzxbgGx.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3752817/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-ending/","duration":"PT10M28S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3752817/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-ending/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```