Early in pre-production, Dr. Kip Thorne laid down two guidelines to strictly follow: nothing would violate established physical laws, and that all the wild speculations would spring from science, and not from the creative mind of a screenwriter. Writer, Producer, and Director Sir Christopher Nolan accepted these terms, as long as they did not get in the way of the making of the movie. That did not prevent clashes, though; at one point Thorne spent two weeks talking Nolan out of an idea about travelling faster than light.
For a cornfield scene, Sir Christopher Nolan sought to grow five hundred acres of corn, which he learned was feasible from his producing of O Homem de Aço (2013). The corn was then sold, and actually made a profit.
The method of space travel in this movie was based on physicist Dr. Kip Thorne's works, which were also the basis for the method of space travel in Carl Sagan's novel "Contact", and the resulting movie adaptation, Contato (1997). Matthew McConaughey starred in both movies.
According to Dr. Kip Thorne, the largest degree of creative license in this movie are the clouds of the ice planet, which are structures that probably go beyond the material strength which ice would be able to support.
Steven Spielberg, who was attached to direct this movie in 2006, and hired Jonathan Nolan to write the screenplay, chose other projects instead. In 2012, after Spielberg's departure, Jonathan Nolan suggested the project to his brother Sir Christopher Nolan.