Update, 6/30: It turns out you are allowed — nay, encouraged! — to sit on the set of a Christopher Nolan movie. On Tuesday, Nolan’s rep clarified that chairs (and, by extension, sitting) are permissible on a Nolan set; banned from the set are “chairs clustered around the video monitor.†See the rep’s full statement to IndieWire:
“For the record, the only things banned from [Christopher Nolan’s] sets are cell phones (not always successfully) and smoking (very successfully). The chairs Anne was referring to are the directors chairs clustered around the video monitor, allocated on the basis of hierarchy not physical need. Chris chooses not to use his but has never banned chairs from the set. Cast and crew can sit wherever and whenever they need and frequently do.â€
Apologies to Anne Hathaway, who we fear might’ve done a lot of standing around for nothing.
What you are probably doing right now — and I mean right this very second, and also something that you probably do every day, multiple times a day — is not allowed on the set of a Christopher Nolan movie. For the latest installment of Variety’s Actors on Actors series, two Nolan veterans — Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises) and Hugh Jackman (The Prestige) were in conversation, and discussed working with the director. Hathaway divulged a secret from Nolan’s notoriously secretive sets: There are no chairs on the set of Nolan movie because Nolan does not allow sitting. He also does not allow cell phones. Observe:
Hathaway: I don’t want to contradict you, but you’ve worked with three directors that don’t allow cellphones: Christopher Nolan.
Jackman: Oh, that’s right.
Hathaway: Chris also doesn’t allow chairs. I worked with him twice. He doesn’t allow chairs, and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they’re sitting, they’re not working. I mean, he has these incredible movies in terms of scope and ambition and technical prowess and emotion. It always arrives at the end under schedule and under budget. I think he’s onto something with the chair thing.
Sorry to Robert Pattinson on the set of Tenet: No sitting. Sorry to John David Washington, also on the set of Tenet: No sitting. Sorry to Harry Styles on the set of Dunkirk: The only sitting you’re doing is on camera. (Did he have to stand when his hair was cut?!) Leonardo DiCaprio has an Oscar but probably didn’t have a chair on the set of Inception! Sorry to Michael Caine on the set of every Nolan movie ever: No sitting! Cue Stanley Tucci’s “gird your loins†voice: Prepare your comfiest shoes.