Getting a tattoo to honor Christopher Nolan’s impact is a cathartic experience

It is often looked down on to get tattoos of movies or television shows. I don’t understand that theory but I also have over 20 tattoos all for my love of fictional worlds or music. So maybe I’m not the one to unpack that.

But one thing I have found cathartic through my time getting tattoos, is the process of deciding when something has become important enough to me to get a tattoo of it. I already had a Christopher Nolan tattoo on my wrist, the birdcage from The Prestige there to represent my favorite of his filmographies. But when I looked at the larger body of Nolan’s work, I felt like one tattoo was not enough for my favorite director.

It took the re-release of Interstellar in IMAX for me to commit to my next Nolan tattoo and the decision was simple: I wanted it to be the morse code for “Stay”. In the film, a young Murphy (Mackenzie Foy) recognizes that the dust left by the ghost in her room was in the formation of morse code. It was giving a warning. The message said to stay and Murphy knew that it was all about her father, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey).

Cooper does not listen, goes on a mission that keeps him from his family for decades, and the two do not reunited until Murphy is on her death bed but Cooper can see the impact his work and this trip meant for society. While the reunion is beautiful, the movie still holds a special place in my heart as someone who has lost their father. I wish my own dad could have stayed and thus the need for an Interstellar tattoo was born.

Finding a way to express yourself through art is important

Many scoff at tattoos and feel some way about them. For me, tattoos are a form of expression. I can share all the things I love through art on my body. And I have found a brilliant artist in Kreg Franco at East Side Ink who helps me bring these ideas to life. Often, I just text him “I want this” and he comes with drawings and ideas that fit my style.

With my Interstellar tattoo, it was less about the art of it and more about the meaning behind it. Losing a loved one is hard but as someone who always feared losing my dad, movies like this really just remind me how much I loved him. Yes, I was always close to both my parents, my mother is my best friend. But I always had this fear of losing my dad, not having the guy who watched the same movie with me over and over again at my side.

I didn’t watch Interstellar until after he died, I was in college when the movie came out and missed its release. But seeing it post losing my father, I hoped there was some hidden message I was missing. I wanted my dad to be my ghost, protecting me and looking out for me. Whenever I feel the most upset about that, I will now remember Murphy and her plea for her father to “stay.”