Christopher Nolan doesn’t let his cast wear ‘comfy slippers’ on set — here’s why

The ‘Odyssey’ director calls these specific slippers a “signifier of modernity”

NEED TO KNOW

• The Odyssey director Christopher Nolan revealed why he doesn’t allow slippers on his sets
• Nolan explained that shoes like UGGs are “a signifier of modernity”
• In his PEOPLE cover story, The Odyssey star Matt Damon confirmed that Nolan indeed operates without a cell phone

Christopher Nolan has a strict footwear rule on his sets.

While appearing on CBS Mornings to discuss his new movie The Odyssey on Monday, July 20, the Oscar-winning director, 55, was asked by host Gayle King about why he doesn’t allow his actors to wear UGG boots on set.

“It’s a joke I had with Emily Blunt and Anne [Hathaway] before then,” Nolan said, explaining that actors often appear on set in “big, fluffy, comfy slippers” because the shoes for their costumes are painful.

He continued, “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 ... it’s like if someone’s eating a bag of chips off-camera or something.”

The director added that “there are certain things that just 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,” he said. “And so, for me, the UGG boots are a signifier of modernity.”

When King suggested that Nolan had something against UGGs specifically, he replied, “No, UGGs are great.”

The director rejects aspects of modernity in his personal life, too.

In his PEOPLE cover story, Matt Damon, who stars as Odysseus in Nolan’s latest project, confirmed that the film’s writer-director indeed operates without a cell phone. Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that he does not communicate via text or email.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

In order to receive word that Nolan wanted him to play Odysseus, the British filmmaker’s wife, Oscar-winning producer Emma Thomas, contacted him. “[She] had texted me, ‘Are you around for a call today?’ Because Chris famously doesn’t have a phone,” recalled Damon.

It’s Thomas, 54, who “always gives you a heads-up if he’s going to call,” explained the actor. “And then you get a phone call from a nondescript number, because he’s just picking up a line at Universal Studios.”

Even Nolan, he added, “doesn’t know what number it’s going to be.”

Read the original article on People