Christopher Nolan may be one of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors, but it turns out his biggest on-set villain is not a studio executive–it’s a pair of Ugg boots.
While promoting The Odyssey, Nolan revealed on CBS Mornings that fluffy footwear has no place on his film sets because it instantly pulls actors out of character.
“I want to stay in the moment. I want the actors to stay in the moment,” Nolan explained. “For me, the Ugg boots are a signifier of modernity, absurd though that is.”
He compared spotting Uggs between takes to seeing someone casually munching on snacks while filming.
“It’s like if someone’s eating a bag of chips off camera,” he said. “There’s certain things that just remind you’re in the real world, as opposed to the world we’re trying to create for the actors.”
The Oppenheimer director quickly clarified the ban is not personal.
“Sometimes actors will turn up—because the footwear hurts—they’ll turn up in these big fluffy, comfy slippers,” he said.
“The funny thing is, you can be on set with 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.”
His stars know the rule well.
“I did show up one day with Uggs, and he looked down and went ‘Nope,’” Anne Hathaway recalled with a laugh. “I just went ‘No problem!’ And they never came back.”
Matt Damon chimed in with a grin: “He hates Uggs more than anything.”
Emily Blunt had a similar experience, joking, “He has such an issue with Ugg boots. It’s a serious problem… He literally just stared at them… He goes, ‘Take those off.’”
Apparently, on a Christopher Nolan set, movie magic starts from the ground up.
