Dylan Arnold has fond memories of visiting the Exploratorium as a kid.

Little did he know that years later he would portray theSan Francisco museum’sfounder,Frank Oppenheimer, inChristopher Nolan’supcoming blockbuster film“Oppenheimer.”

“I remember running around the giant warehouse-like room and just wanting to touch everything, which I’m sure Frank would have appreciated,” recalled Arnold, a Seattle native who often visited his grandmother Jan in Marin County.

“Oppenheimer” is about the development of the atomic bomb by a team of scientists during World War II. The Manhattan Project, as it was dubbed, was led byJ. Robert Oppenheimer, portrayed by Cillian Murphy. Frank Oppenheimer worked with his older brother at theLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory— founded by UC Berkeley physics professor Ernest Lawrence, played byJosh Hartnettin the film — and was part of the Manhattan Project team.

Arnold, 29, known for his roles in the recent “Halloween” and “After” films, spoke to The Chronicle by phone from Los Angeles.

This conversation, which took place before the SAG-AFTRA strike, has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What struck you about Frank Oppenheimer as you were researching the role?

A:His intense curiosity about the world and about how the world works. I love the story of him taking apart his father’s grand piano when he was away and then having to figure out how to put it back together before he got home.

When he was a kid, growing up in New York, he would climb up into a water tower and sit and listen to them creak and the water move. It just seemed like he said “yes” to life in this amazing way and looked at this world in a whimsical, wide-eyed way.

It seemed like his entire life was leading up to him creating the Exploratorium. He said something along the lines of, “You don’t have to know about physics to understand physics.” I just love that his goal was to create this place where people could experiment and not know anything about physics but learn something.

Q: Is there anything in your own personality that’s like Frank?

A:I have a similar explorative mentality. I wasn’t quite as good at putting things back together, but I could take them apart. My dad would always say that I was a kinesthetic learner. I needed to touch things to figure them out.

Q: How did Christopher Nolan communicate his vision to you?

A:His goal was to meld two versions of (J. Robert) Oppenheimer — the real man and the version that Cillian is portraying in the movie, because, of course, it’s not a documentary, it’s a movie. So that was my goal as well with Frank.

Chris wrote a phenomenal script, but he also gave a lot of trust to his actors. He trusted everyone to do their own research.

Chris wanted to highlight the brotherly relationship between Frank and Robert. From Robert’s perspective, to be a part of something as massive as the Manhattan Project and to be able to bring your brother along, seems like a pretty special experience.

问:什么是你最喜欢的一天拍摄的the set?

A:My first day. I got to ride a horse through a canyon in New Mexico. I was with Josh Hartnett and Cillian Murphy riding up the side of a hill toward Christopher Nolan, who’s behind an Imax film camera. That was a very surreal, special, special moment.

Q: In doing your research, did you get the sense that Frank or Robert had any guilt over what they helped create?

A:弗兰克的一句话是,当他听到了radio announcement that they dropped a bomb over Hiroshima, his very first thought was, “Oh, thank God it worked.” Then right after that, before that thought could even be completed, he thought, “Oh, those poor, poor people.”

It seemed like from my research, all of the scientists felt this immense guilt.

Q: What would you hope people who go see “Oppenheimer” think about as they exit the theater?

A:There’s a scene in the film in which they wonder if they press the button to ignite the bomb, that they might ignite the atmosphere. Obviously, they didn’t do that, but I hope that people think about the consequences of curiosity in this way. I think curiosity is amazing, incredible and very important. But I hope people think about the consequences of scientific advancements.

We’re seeing this with AI right now, where we are creating something that we don’t really know what it’s going to do. I think that’s a really interesting parallel. (The Manhattan Project scientists)didchange the world with what they created. I hope that people reflect on the things thatwedo that change the world.

Q: Is AI going to end up being a good thing?

A:I hope so. Obviously, it’s an incredible tool, and I hope that we’re able to use it for good, because I think it can do a lot of really amazing, incredible things. Hopefully people use it with the best intentions and not the worst.

The scary part is that it doesn’t seem like we’re really running it, it seems like it’s running us.

Reach G. Allen Johnson:ajohnson@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @BRFilmsAllen