No, Christopher Nolan doesn’t actually ban chairs from his sets

Christopher Nolan, the director of movies like The Dark Night and Inception, has been the talk of Twitterverse for the last day or so over a comment regarding chairs. Yes, chairs. In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, during her chat with Hugh Jackman on Variety’s “Actors on Actors” segment, Anne Hathaway stated that Christoper Nolan bans chairs from his sets. According to her, he said it keeps people constantly working.

So there are two ways of looking at this. Either you praise his creative genius for thinking radically on how to keep people motivated, or you find yourself disturbed that he would subject his cast and crew to such conditions. Whatever your thought process may be, it turns out that the whole “chair ban” policy may not even be true.

It looks like the internet may have jumped to conclusions. I know, I’m shocked, too.

While the Twitterverse was reacting very strongly to this supposed policy, there were some who were more skeptical. This includes A.V. Club contributor Ignatiy Vishnevetsky who found pictures of people sitting down on Christoper Nolan set. Even IndieWire pointed out that anyone that has been on a Nolan set has definitely seen chairs, so what gives, Anne Hathaway?

Admist all this no chair hoopla, Nolan’s spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak talked to IndieWire and confirmed that the director does not ban chairs from set.

"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."

Okay, so maybe he doesn’t like using his chairs, but it doesn’t mean that no one else can. Sometimes when you see that the person in charge is relentlessly working towards a goal and won’t even sit down for a moment to catch his breath, you get inspired.

Maybe that’s Nolan’s tactic, or maybe there really is no substance behind this “no chairs” drama, but either way, Twitter had a field day with this. In all of this, however, I can’t help but wonder: did Anne Hathaway just not sit while on set then? Did she actually strut around with those killer heels because she thought chairs weren’t allowed?

#ChairGate updates as they arise.

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