Christopher Nolan Has Banned One Signature Fashion Item From His Movie Sets

Christopher Nolan runs a tight ship on his film sets, apparently — to the point where he's banned one specific fashion item that'll probably be familiar to millennial women everywhere.

During an interview on The Today Show, Nolan, the Oscar-winning director of "Oppenheimer" and "The Odyssey" (which just ruled the box office), told Gayle King that he doesn't want lead actresses like Emily Blunt (who starred as Kitty Oppenheimer in, well, "Oppenheimer") and Anne Hathaway (who appeared in "Interstellar" and "The Dark Knight Rises" before starring as Penelope in "The Odyssey") to pad around in the Australian-made shearling boots between takes. "[Hathaway] said something interesting. She said 'Chris says no Uggs on the set.' What does that mean?" King asked.

"You know, it's a thing of — it's a joke I have with Emily Blunt, and Anne [Hathaway] before then," Nolan told King. "Sometimes actors will turn up, because the footwear hurts them, so they'll turn up in these big fluffy comfy slippers." He continued:

"And the funny thing is, you can be on a set, where you've got a guy holding a microphone, you've got a giant camera, you've got crew everywhere. But something like that can actually weirdly take you out of reality. And for me, I think that's always been something, where, it's like if someone's eating a bag of chips off-camera or something."

As Nolan put it, "There are just certain things that remind you you're in the real world as opposed to the world we're trying to create for the actors. I want to stay in the moment; we want the actors to stay in the moment. And so for me, Ugg boots are a signifier of modernity." Nolan did also admit, though, that they're "great," so he's at least tried them on at some point.

The origin of Nolan's one-sided beef with Uggs goes back to "Oppenheimer," where Emily Blunt preferred to wear them between takes. "She gave me a pair of Ugg boots — Ugg slippers, actually — as a wrap gift," Nolan said on "The View" (per Entertainment Weekly). "For people who have been on a set, people know how it works — we're there, losing the light, 'Okay, we need the actors to come in,' and sometimes they'll come straight from wardrobe, but they'll have these big coats on top, and they'll be wearing these big Ugg boots, because the shoes of the character are uncomfortable. You know, 1940s shoes." According to Nolan, this drove him nuts.

Blunt, however, had a point to prove. "And she got so sick of me saying that time after time, she thought I should join the cult of Ugg boots," Nolan said. As for Blunt herself, she joked about the entire experience. "I've never known anyone to detest a pair of Uggs more than Chris Nolan," Blunt said to USA Today around the same time as Nolan's comments.

"I would sometimes put on some Uggs, and I'd just get this withering look down to my feet — it was like being in 'The Devil Wears Prada' again," she continued, referencing the film series where she plays judgmental fashion maven Emily Charlton. "Just the look down to the shoes. And I'd go, 'I know, I know. But I'm just sitting on an apple box in the background today!'" The funniest part of this whole saga, though, is that Nolan's wife and collaborator Emma Thomas apparently texted Blunt to say the gift was perfect ... because Nolan wore them all the time.

Ugg boots aren't the only thing that Christopher Nolan bans on his sets. I'll get this one out of the way: despite Anne Hathaway's proclamation that Nolan banned "chairs" on set because he doesn't want his actors sitting now, that's not true at all, apparently. In 2020, Nolan's spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak had to release a statement after a Variety "Actors on Actors" conversation between Hathaway and Hugh Jackman made waves over Hathaway's casual statement. "For the record, the only things banned from [Christopher Nolan's] sets are cell phones (not always successfully) and smoking (very successfully)," Bush said (via IndieWire) before clarifying. "The chairs Anne was referring to are the director's chairs clustered around the video monitor, allocated on the basis of hierarchy, not physical need." According to Bush, Nolan, who's usually on the move during filming, doesn't use his, but everyone is allowed to sit down when they want. 

Look. Banning cell phones and smoking feels completely reasonable to me; both things cause distractions and lead to a lack of focus. Let the ladies wear Uggs between takes, though! Clearly, Nolan has never shoved his foot into a high heel, but any woman who has knows just how uncomfortable the experience can be. While I completely get what he's saying — Nolan prefers to shoot in natural light in the elements, so time is of the essence — the girls should be allowed to wear some slippers every now and then!

"The Odyssey," a film in which nobody wears Uggs, is in theaters now.