Few filmmakers can boast a filmography like Christopher Nolan. The legendary director has risen to all-time-great since his arrival in the ‘90s, moving from cerebral indie fare like Memento and Following, to none-more-ambitious brain-twisting blockbusters like Inception and the Oscar-dominating Oppenheimer. Factor in one of the greatest superhero trilogies of all time with the Dark Knight movies, bold originals like Interstellar and Tenet, and instant-classic thrillers like The Prestige and Dunkirk, and you have a body of work for the ages. And as the director tells Empire, none of it worked out quite how he expected.

For Empire's Christopher Nolan Special Collector’s Edition, we sat down with Nolan – and his producing partner and wife Emma Thomas – for a major new career-spanning interview, looking back on everything they’ve achieved. For such a meticulous filmmaker, it’ll be no surprise that Nolan always had a plan. “As a young man,...