Christopher Nolan knows all about film critics in Hollywood, but it’s safe to say he didn’t expect to hear criticism during a workout class.
While accepting the award for best director from the New York Film Critics Circle on Wednesday, the Oppenheimer filmmaker recalled when a Peloton instructor caught him by surprise, sharing her critical thoughts on one of his films.
“I was on my Peloton doing a high-interval workout. I’m dying,” Nolan said during his acceptance speech. “The instructor started talking about one of my films and said, ‘Has anyone else seen this? Because that’s a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again.’” It was later discovered to be his 2020 film Tenet that the Peloton instructor was referring to, although she obviously didn’t know that the movie’s director was also in the class that day.
Though Nolan admitted that “directors have a complex emotional relationship with critics and criticism,” he said he continues to have an appreciation for the role of film critics in the industry.
“When [film critic] Rex Reed takes a shit on your film, he doesn’t ask you to work out!” the Oscar-nominated director quipped. “In today’s world, where opinions are everywhere, there is a sort of idea that film criticism is being democratized. But I, for one, think the critical appreciation of films shouldn’t be an instinct, but it should be a profession.”
Nolan continued, addressing the professional critics at the ceremony, “What we have here tonight is a group of professionals who attempt objectivity. Obviously writing about cinema objectively is a paradox, but the aspirations of objectivity is what makes criticism vital and timeless and useful to filmmakers and the filmmaking community.”
Following a clip of Nolan’s speech being shared on social media, the Peloton clip that the filmmaker referenced also later resurfaced online.
Instructor Jenn Sherman can be heard saying during the virtual class, “This song is from a soundtrack of a movie called Tenet. Anybody see this shit? Did anybody see this besides me? Because I need a manual. Someone’s got to explain this. Yeah, I’m not kidding, what the fuck was going on in that movie? Do you understand? Seriously, you need to be a neuroscientist to understand. And that’s two and a half hours of my life that I want back.”
