The One Thing Christopher Nolan Banned from The Odyssey Set

2 min readOnce you’ve worked in the film industry long enough, you begin to pick up on the few signs and clichés to avoid so that your audience isn’t yanked back to reality. Something as simple as a cheesy line can set it off. An unpredicted cameo. Batman’s rubber nipples in Batman & Robin. But for Christopher Nolan, turns out there’s a particular brand of footwear that sets him off. So he outright booted it from the set of The Odyssey.During an interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings, the broadcast journalist mentioned to Nolan that she heard he banned Uggs on set. “Anne Hathaway said, ‘Chris says no Uggs on the set,’ ” King told the director. “What does that mean?”Apparently it’s a long-running inside joke he has with Hathaway and Emily Blunt.“Sometimes actors, because the footwear hurts them, they’ll turn up in these big, fluffy, comfy slippers,” Nolan said. “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.”Crunching on snacks is distracting too. My mind immediately went to the Bat Nipples.Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal PicturesIf you look closely, you’ll see that Anne Hathaway is not wearing Ugg boots in this shot.“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,” Nolan continued. “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.”This isn’t the first time that Nolan’s Ugg ban took effect. In 2023, the director told The View that Blunt “used to drive [him] crazy” walking around the set of Oppenheimer in Ugg boots.“I’d immediately say to her, ‘Can you please just get rid of the boots, put the shoes on, and get ready to go?’ ” Nolan said. Blunt later sent him a pair of his own as a wrap gift, which he admitted were “pretty comfortable.” Maybe he’s coming around! If they had Ugg boots in ancient Greece, I’m sure Clytemnestra would have tossed those dry and flimsy sandals out just like she did Agamemnon. Sorry, too soon?