"You Have No Gauge." Christopher Nolan's Brutal Note for Anne Hathaway | One on One | Bazaar UK

Hi, I'm Anne Hathaway. I wish. I'm Matt Damon. I wish. And we are one-on-one with Harper's Bazaar UK. How has your experience on working with Christopher Nolan changed over the years? I feel like I've taught him a lot in the ensuing years. I feel that way too. I see that in his work. Absolutely. I think Chris is so consistent. I think that he's just one of those people that's always been himself. I can imagine the director that made Following, which if you haven't seen it, you really have to see it. It's Chris's first film. And he shot it over the course of a year with a small group of friends. For about $5. Literally. So they would work on weekends and they would shoot a film every weekend. And he kept the story together for a year. And I just think that the person who made that movie that had the discipline without any kind of, you know, guidance or overhead, the person with the discipline to get up every weekend and do that, is the same guy who made this film. Also, I think it's the mark of his incredible integrity that he had friends that would give up every weekend for a year to come work for free for him. And by the way, and I met them at the premiere for Dark Knight Rises. It was really cool because they were like, oh yeah, we're Chris's friends. Actually, we made a film with him too. Are you guys the following crew? And they were like, oh yeah, that's us. And I just freaked out and spent the entire night talking to them. That's really cool. So I just think that because he is so consistent, I can, I just feel like I've gotten to grow. It's like something that just, I've been acting since I was a teenager. And so I've had kind of no choice but to grow up in front of people. And so it's just really fun to come back to this stage in my life, like, you know, just kind of understanding now the humor that comes with being a parent. And connecting with him on that, but also just being at a stage in my life where I, I'm just really interested in letting go, not getting it perfect, not nothing like that, but just actually kind of actually jumping off the mountain and having it be a proper trust exercise and not knowing how we're going to land. Love it. Okay. How did taking on the role of Odysseus challenge you both physically and creatively? And what was the hardest scene for you? Uh, obviously working with you was pretty tough. That was, uh, I don't. How many, how many levels in the levels of hell? No, honestly, working with you. I don't want to embarrass you in front of the Harper's Bazaar crowd. But, um, but I said to Chris, when we shot that, cause that the whole scene, the movie kind of comes to a head in this scene that we have. And so I'd been working on it for months and months. And, uh, I just, I looked in, in your eyes and, uh, that, that was it. Like I got completely transported. I swear to God, I Chris said that scene he, after he saw the dailies, he said that, you know, he was really excited about how it worked. And I said, that was Annie. I swear to God, I'm serious. It's happened to me before in my career with other. Actors and it's the most wonderful thing. It's, it's like surfing a wave and you don't even have to think about it. You're just, you're just off. I felt that way, felt that way with you. It was just kind of like, it was like action. And it was just more like the way I surf in real life, a little wobbly. But I just, I just felt like, I don't know. I just felt like you just pray for a dance partner. Yeah. No, you just pray for someone. And it's just like, yeah, I don't know. The music's taking us over here now. Yeah. And you weren't, and you weren't what, like what you said in your first answer about, about being available and being more free and relaxed. You weren't driving the scene towards something towards some preconceived idea. And I really felt that I just was just on the wave with you and, and we didn't know where it was going to go. And that's, that's the best feeling. Thank you. Oh, this isn't, is there a role you turn down that you still think about? Not really. It's not the role that I turned down because when I saw the film, I was like, you know how it is. Like sometimes you're just like, would have been amazing. But actually it was that person's part. It was in their destiny. What I regret is the way that I've turned things down. And what I know now is that you always meet with the director. You always meet with the director. You just get a feel for each other. The director of that project is somebody that I have wanted to work with since. And I don't know that I'm going to get the opportunity because like, he really wanted me for this part. And I just, there was something about it that didn't resonate with me. And so I would, so I thought I was being respectful by giving them like a bunch of quick notes, but he came back a bunch of times. And then in hindsight, I was like, I should have sat down with him. Should have looked him eye to eye, explained what was going on for me and given him a chance to plead his case. That's, you know, I actually once went to meet Sir Ridley Scott to turn down The Martian because I had just done that part in Interstellar. And I got so in my head. I said, well, I just played a guy stranded on a planet. I can't then go play a guy stranded on a planet. I mean, this is me just classically, stupidly overthinking things. So I said that out loud to Ridley. And without like missing a beat, he goes, oh, no one gives a ----. And I was like, all right, I'll do it. And it was one of the great decisions I've made in my life because it was a great role with Ridley and I had a ball doing it. And I have the inverse of that story because I did a thing, made the decision that it was too similar, didn't meet with the director. And that's it's not again, not that I regret it, but I regret not having that moment to sit down and have my Ridley Scott be like, no one gives a ----. Because truly, no one gives a ----. That is the thing you learn getting older. You know, people care so much less about you than they think, than you think, you know what I mean? It's so liberating when you're just like nobody. Nobody actually cares. Like the note, like when you're younger, you're like everyone on the right. Everyone's looking at me right now. And then you're like, now, do you remember the first time we met? Yeah, because we were in Iceland. Oh, my gosh, of course. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry. In my mind, I reversed it and I thought it was like in a cold storage unit. And no, no, we shot that second. We shot that second. Yeah. And I feel like that when we really met. This is your question. I remembering now was we got delayed. We were weather delayed because of that windstorm. And so it was you, me and Matthew McConaughey sitting there looking at a phone, watching football scores get updated. You guys explained football to me. That's right. That was awesome. Yeah, we were trying to follow every game on his phone. And and then Chris decided to shoot close ups in the parking lot during the windstorm because we'd been pulled off the glacier for safety, which is a very Chris thing. Like he never lets the momentum. He never takes his feet off foot off the gas. I do remember that we were like kind of in, you know, we were all at the same it was like a camper's lodge. It was like a hiker's motel. Yeah. And and so we were all kind of in the same common area. And I remember Chris was standing by the door, like looking for any change in the weather. And at one point he walked away. He's just like, maybe it's not that bad. And then like with that, the door, the glass in the door just shattered. And so he was like, that's what I think. He was like, OK, we're going to the parking lot, not going back up there. Yeah, yeah, that that was. I remember it so well because it was such a unique like all of this, you know, all of these locations in this movie, there's just there's nothing else like them. Yeah. And then and then do you remember on our way back to Reykjavik, we stopped at that restaurant? Oh, my God. Yeah, me and Adam. Yeah. And Adam and I have been vegan for years at that point. And we walked into the restaurant. I'll never forget. I was behind you and I saw the entire restaurant. And like, you know, Icelandic people do not react to famous people. But everybody was very excited. You were there in a very low key way. And I remember sitting down and the waiter being like, you know, what are you interested in? And you're like, I'll have whatever the chef wants to serve me. And then I was like, OK, now I am the second most famous person in this restaurant, not the most famous person in this restaurant. I'm a vegan and I'm a woman. And I just couldn't bear like the idea of being like, could the chef just make me a special meal on the spot? And so that was the first time I had fish in two years was with you. And I think I had puffin, which was really, really brutal. You had reindeer. Yeah, I was, you know, was the what was puffin like? I can't remember. I blocked it out. Yeah, I didn't I didn't I didn't think, you know, normally if you make a request like you're just trying to hey, whatever you want to serve me. And I was not I didn't I didn't. That wasn't on my bingo card. So now you can say you've done it. I did it and I don't have to do it again. Lovely call in that night. Yeah, yeah, that's right. What's something Chris said to you about your performance that he never said to me? What a great question. I feel there's a river of compliments that you received, a raft of adulation. I just I my mind always goes back to this one that made me so that cracked me up. And Adam died when I told him about it, which was we were discussing a scene. And I was kind of saying to him, like, yeah, because these these takes, you know, I felt like I maybe hadn't totally understood it yet. But in this one, I felt like something really cool, like moved me during it. And he just kind of started to smirk and he goes, you have no gauge. That's yeah. And I just went, oh, and he goes, yeah, that because I saw the dailies and it's the complete opposite of everything you just said. So you have no gauge. And I told Adam that and he mocked up like a picture of Homer on a postcard. And underneath it just said, you have no gauge. That's brilliant. And that's what I use for Chris's. Oh, that's brilliant. That's brilliant. So I don't think he ever said that to you. I think he was like, you're a sharpshooter. I think he thought of you as a sniper. I don't know. I mean, but but it's such brilliant advice when you think of when you think of going back to that first answer, you know, about allowing yourself to be free because you can't control it. And even if you could, you don't really know what you're controlling. No. And I don't know how the camera works like like after all these years to be put in front of a camera that I've never really acted in front of. I just loved getting to go back to that beginner mindset and just go, OK, this is just like the very first movie you ever made where you have to rely on the director. You kind of feel like a baby. Totally. You know, you just have to rely on everyone for everything. It's so technically different that it makes it feel like your first movie again, like everything's new. What's something the audience might be surprised by from this film? I think this film is really overwhelming in a really good way. You're going to say overrated. And I was like, no, overwhelming. It's such it's such a. I think when when when you look at it and you realize that that we got all of those, we actually got all of those shots and there's those aren't special effects. That all happened. And when you see, you know, a thousand people running and, you know, people on fire running to, you know, buildings like burning Troy, like that, we really did all that. And the way it would have been done 80 years ago and and I hope people find that surprising. I hope they they enjoy it because the the amount of effort it takes to do that, the amount of coordination and it's so many hundreds of people doing such a good job and working so hard all at once that that's what sticks out. When I when I looked at it, it felt like one of those old spectacle movies that that that wowed me as a kid. I had a conversation with someone on set and they're kind of newer to the business. And we were both in the Ithaca portion, but we weren't going on to the next portion that And we were discussing what that scene is, which is shot on black sand. And I can't tell you what it is, but it's a technically like impossible shot. It's so, so hard and so unlikely and so ambitious. And so I was just sitting there one day trying to figure out how you guys are going to do it. And this person who was kind of new to the business, we were going back and forth. And I said, yeah, but on the sand, how are they going to get rid of everybody's footprints in time? And this person goes, well, they're going to fix it in post. And I went, no, that's the thing they're not. And so that's one of the things I'm excited about for young people who are so used to the idea that so much of what movies are created in a computer. I think it's so exciting for young people in particular to understand this was all created in a camera. And also to know that the reason for that is that is that when you do a special effect, you film on this film and you get the negative. And if you do a special effect, you have to run the film through another stage in order to and so if there's a slight degradation of the film and Chris wants every single film print that you see to be a direct print right from the negative, a positive print right from that negative so that there's nothing separating you and this experience that we all have. And so I think when you take something like that, that's really granular and intimate, and then you apply it to something that the story is so epic, I can't nothing comes to mind that's that's similar, except for like the greats like Lawrence of Arabia. But yeah, I don't know. They'll tell us. It's yeah, yeah. And so you guys will decide it. Okay, if you could take one prop costume or memento home from the set, what would it be and why? There was a table I wanted. I thought the tables that were in our palace were really, really gorgeous. And I just thought that'd be a lovely kind of just dining room table to have people come over. And at what point in the meal do you tell them that they're eating on an Ithacan table? Especially when you're dealing with like a world class production designer. She's amazing. But I remember that reminds me that Steven Soderbergh, when he bought his apartment in New York years ago, this is when we were doing like Ocean's Eleven. He had the production designer do his do his apartment. It's such a good idea. I've thought that so many times when I'm on a movie set. Yeah, Phil did his whole house. And they put it together so quickly and they're on a budget, so it doesn't cost a million dollars. It's a great life hack if you know a production designer. But I have to say, out of loyalty to Penelope, it's a really impractical choice, but I think it's a loom. I was going to say, I was going to joke and say, take the loom. It's pretty big. You'd need someone like Adam would have to be on board with that. And I certainly, by the way, didn't master it. But I feel like if it was there, I feel like you got very good at weaving. I got very good at looking like I was, you know, it was a lot of it was a lot of fake looming. Right, right. If you were actually stranded at sea for 10 years, what's I assume that like you've got sunscreen, you've got food. Let's hope water. Yeah. What's one thing you would take with you? Oh, well, I'd want a good companion. I'd want someone to hang with. Good answer. So it would probably be my wife. Ideally, I don't know if it would be consensual with her at this point. She'd want to do 10 years on the ocean. She's she she keeps me around. Would you would you bring the dogs? I don't know if it would be fair to keep them. Although I live in Brooklyn with them. So it's kind of the same thing. But we get them out and we run them. That'd be tough on a boat. OK, thanks for watching, everybody. We really appreciate it. If you made it all the way to the end. I hope you found this as fascinating as we clearly find ourselves. You have a great day. Bye.