The masses who rabidly swarm the legendary Hall H at Comic-Con International went wild on Thursday, the opening day, when Interstellar director Christopher Nolan and his leading man, Matthew McConaughey, dropped by the event for the first time. Paramount Pictures pulled off a surprise move – a surprise, but one that everybody had been hoping for.

McConaughey arrived first, walking about the stage, mic in hand, as he described his character in the piece. He plays an engineer tasked to join a space mission to save humanity. "I met with Christopher Nolan for three hours," McConaughey said of joining the project," and he didn't say one word about the film, and I remember leaving thinking: 'What the hell was that about?' Anyway, he liked me and a week later the script arrived and I liked it and said, 'I'm in.'

According to the actor, Interstellar, a sci-fi movie about a group of space explorers who travel through a wormhole to explore new dimensions, is Nolan's most ambitious project so far. It would be hard to argue with that. When the British director took to the stage many in the audience stood up in admiration. "Thank you for having us," he said. "This has been the backbone of all the extraordinary success we have had, so thank you."

He continued: "The single biggest influence for me was [Kubrick's] 2001. I was able to go with my dad and see it in London on the big screen. We have the opportunity to tell a similarly ambitious story. That's my ambition for the film, and I'm striving towards it."

Nolan drew laughs when he said he didn't want to reveal his influences because people would see just how much he's been inspired by other directors. But he did say that while an early interest in space exploration was a big theme in his life when he was growing up, Interstellar was really "about human beings and what it is to be human".

They finished the appearance with the premiere of a new trailer, showing a lot of what we've seen in other space films. What's new, though is the astronauts, including Anne Hathaway, venturing on to a planet that appears to be made entirely of ice. There were also several stunning space vistas.

Interstellar will open on 6 November in the UK and on 7 November in the US.

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