Christopher Nolan.
Photo: Jun Sato / WireImage
What you’re probably doing right now, and I mean in this very secondAnd also something you probably do every day, several times a day, is not allowed on the set of a Christopher Nolan movie. For the last installment of VarietyActors in the Actors series, two Nolan veterans: Anne Hathaway (The dark knight rises) and Hugh Jackman (The prestige) talked and talked about working with the director. Hathaway disclosed a secret to Nolan’s notoriously secret sets: There are no chairs on the set for Nolan’s movie because Nolan doesn’t allow sitting. It also does not allow cell phones. Observe:
Hathaway: I don’t want to contradict him, but he has worked with three directors who do not allow cell phones: Christopher Nolan.
Jackman: Oh that’s correct.
Hathaway: Chris doesn’t allow chairs either. I worked with him twice. He does not allow chairs, and his reasoning is that if he has chairs, people will sit, and if they are sitting, they will not be working. I mean, he has these amazing movies in terms of scope and ambition, technical prowess, and excitement. It always comes to the end on schedule and on budget. I think he has something with the chair.
Sorry for Robert Pattinson on the set of Beginning: Without sitting. I’m sorry for John David Washington, also on the set of Beginning: Without sitting. Sorry for Harry Styles on the set of Dunkirk: The only session you are doing is on camera. (Did he have to stand up when his hair was cut ?!) Leonardo DiCaprio has an Oscar but he probably didn’t have a chair on the set of Start! Sorry for Michael Caine on the set of all Nolan movies: Don’t Sit! Cue the voice of “gird your loins” by Stanley Tucci: prepare your most comfortable shoes.
