Hugh Jackman explains why everyone loves Christopher Nolan: “He’s incredibly communicative”
Naturally, as one of Australia’s all-time great actors and someone who has achieved widespread success in Hollywood, Hugh Jackman has been able to work with some of the biggest directors in the movie industry, including Baz Luhrmann and George Miller. However, even those two names can’t eclipse the legendary Christopher Nolan.
Jackman was afforded the opportunity to work with Nolan back in 2006 on his psychological thriller The Prestige, based on Christopher Priest’s 1995 novel of the same name. Jackman and Christian Bale play two rival stage magicians in Victorian London who compete with one another to create the greatest teleportation illusion of all time.
With the likes of Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis and even David Bowie as Nikola Tesla all in toe, The Prestige is a brilliant effort among Nolan’s many great works of cinema. When speaking with the BBC around the time of the film’s release, Jackman explained why everyone in the film industry loves working with Nolan.
“He’s incredibly communicative,” Jackman said. “There’s not a person in Hollywood, or the film business, who doesn’t love him.” However, Jackman admitted that it’s not just the actors that Nolan hires who absolutely love working with him, but all the departments that go into making a film production, like props, hair and makeup, etc.
“Everyone loves him because he’s incredibly prepared,” Jackman added. The actor went on to say that there is also a reason that Nolan is so good at working with his actors and giving them the platform to give amazing performances, and it all comes down to the way he is so precise with his script and production schedule.
“The script that we shot was pretty much the script that I read,” Jackman explained. “There aren’t many changes. He also leaves it open to you to interpret the role for yourself.” According to the actor, when he had been contacted by his agent to inform him of The Prestige, he was told that they would be shooting until April 11th, and April 11th just so happened to be the exact day on which the shoot wrapped, showing the striking precision and detail of Nolan.
It’s easy to see why so many people in the movie industry love Nolan then, and his passion for cinema always shines through when making a film. Cillian Murphy, who’s starred in a number of films for Nolan, including The Dark Knight and Oppenheimer, also once spoke of the way that Nolan has an obsession over every facet of a movie, which makes it easier to actually make.
“He’s over everything,” Murphy had once said when discussing his role in Oppenheimer. “The colour of the socks. The model of the watch. Every single detail. He feels that everyone who works on the film, all the HoDs, are just extensions of his job – which is the real definition of the director. He can’t do everything. He does pretty much everything, but he needs all these brilliant people to fulfil his vision, to bring his vision to life.”
So, according to both Murphy and Jackman, Nolan possesses striking attention to detail that makes everyone love working with him. Then, of course, there are the films themselves, which are widely considered some of the greatest contemporary works of cinema, showing that not only does the film industry love Nolan, but so too do the fans of modern cinema.
