Christopher Nolan’s team denies he bans chairs and phones from his film sets

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of "Chair Talk." I'll be your host, Steve Seigh, and today we're talking about how Christopher Nolan's team denies Anne Hathaway's allegation that the director does not allow chairs on set. I hope you're sitting down because we're about to blow the lid off of Hollywood's latest chair-related scandal.

Please allow me to present you with some background to the matter at hand. Variety yesterday published an "Actors on Actors" video interview between Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman in which Hathaway commented on Nolan's decision not to allow chairs on set. While the comment sounded innocent enough, the internet's gonna internet, and surprise, surprise, a lot of people had taken the actress' words out of context.

“For the record, the only things banned from [Christopher Nolan’s] sets are cell phones (not always successfully) and smoking (very successfully),” Nolan’s spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak of ID said in a statement. “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.”

In her interview, Hathaway said that Nolan “doesn’t allow chairs, and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they’re sitting, they’re not working.” She then added, “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.”

As it turns out, the whole thing was a misunderstanding. Be that as it may, Novak's explanation failed to arrive before irate critics and journalists referred to Nolan's alleged "no chair" rule as “ableist and a labor violation.” I wonder how those naysayers feel after it's been established by multiple sources that chairs are indeed available on the set of Nolan's productions and that cast and crew are welcome to occupy them as needed. In fact, according to MANDY co-writer Aaron Stewart-Ahn, “we had plenty of chairs and tables in our staging area” on THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Wow. I don't know how you can argue with a testimonial like that. It's almost like the chairs were there all along.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode of "Chair Talk" when we speak with the couch from NBC's FRIENDS, and reveal the reason it wasn't asked to return for the show's upcoming reunion special on HBO Max.