The actor who couldn’t stand working with Christopher Nolan: “Life is greatly diminished”
Like a lot of other directors, Christopher Nolan has spent his career assembling a trusted inner circle of on-camera collaborators whom he knows he can rely on, regardless of the roles he casts them in.
He might have lost his most frequent and his lucky charm when Michael Caine retired, but it’s not as if the pool is emptying. After all, he’s still got Cillian Murphy to fall back on, with Matt Damon, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, and more all part of the filmmaker’s club.
Since he’s one of the best directors in the business, and one of a select few who operate with the closest thing that Hollywood can offer to uninhibited creative and artistic freedom, there aren’t many actors who’d turn down the chance to be on a Nolan set, regardless of how much it irritates them when they’re there.
David Bowie tried to reject The Prestige, but the filmmaker simply wasn’t having it, while Guy Pearce experienced the complete opposite after his incredible performance in Memento turned out to be a one-and-done thing, which wasn’t a decision he had any say in.
While assembling the massive cast for his ‘Best Picture’-winning Oppenheimer, Nolan knew that he’d need Albert Einstein. The scientist was one of the most distinctive figures of the 20th century, so whoever played the part knew from the beginning that they would need the hair-and-moustache combination.
Veteran Scottish character actor Tom Conti got the job, and he didn’t sound too happy about it. “That was the worst part about this whole thing,” he explained. “Because I hate hair that long, and can’t stand having a moustache. I mean, you can’t eat soup, spaghetti, anything like that. Life is greatly diminished with this hirsute appearance.”
Obviously, that begs the question as to why he auditioned and subsequently accepted the part of Oppenheimer’s Einstein, knowing that he’d be required to grow some hefty facial furniture and sport a shock of voluminous hair. He did, though, and when it came time to forsake the razor, he grew ever more frustrated.
“It’s just a terrible thing to have,” Conti ranted. “I’d have to send them photos so they could see how it was going. Then there was the hair.” Again, why would he agree to play a character with such a recognisable appearance, and then complain the whole time about having to do what he was hired to do?
Luckily for him, it was a fairly rapid production, since the actor admitted that he kept emailing and asking, “Can I take this damn moustache off now?” Eventually, though, he did it anyway. “I told them if they wanted me in a moustache again, they’d have to stick it back on,” Conti added, having suffered for his art and endured a torrid time by carrying out the basic requirements of the job he’d been paid for. Poor fella.
