Bradley Cooper's startling revelation about his directing process is met with a cool response.
The Oscar-nominated actor and filmmaker recently spoke with Spike Lee as part of Variety's “Directors on Directors” video series and revealed in the interview that he did not repurpose any chairs from the sets of films he directs.
“There are no chairs on set,” Cooper said. “I've always hated chairs and I feel like once you sit on the chair, your energy drains. So [an] “Apple box is a very nice way to sit and everyone is together.”
He also told Lee that there is “no video village,” referring to the behind-the-scenes area of a film set full of monitors and screens that is usually reserved for the director.
“I hate this,” he said.
Although Cooper is not the first director to express his distaste for chairs on set, some felt his comments smacked of both privilege and, even worse, ability thinking.
“Anyway, I think every single person on set should have a chair provided, not just the cast/video village, because it's inhumane to work 12+ hours a day without being allowed to sit,” one person wrote on X , the social media platform previously known as Twitter.
Open Image ModalBradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan at the “Maestro” premiere in Los Angeles.
David Livingston via Getty Images
Another added: “As an actor confined to a wheelchair, I feel like Bradley Cooper wouldn't let me on set…”
Cooper is riding awards season in high gear with “Maestro,” coming to Netflix next week. The film, his directorial follow-up to the 2018 romantic drama “A Star Is Born,” is a biography of composer Leonard Bernstein (played by Cooper), whose famous works include “West Side Story” and “Candide.”
Among those who reportedly share Cooper's aversion to chairs is director Christopher Nolan. In 2020, Anne Hathaway — who starred in Nolan's films “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Interstellar” — told Variety that the director “doesn't allow chairs.”
“His argument is that if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they sit, they won't work,” Hathaway said at the time. She further noted that she didn't entirely reject Nolan's approach: “I think he's onto something with the chair thing.”
A representative for Nolan later told IndieWire that Hathaway's comments had been misinterpreted, clarifying that the director had only ever banned “cell phones (not always successfully) and smoking (very successfully)” from his sets.
However, earlier this month, Robert Downey Jr. confirmed Hathaway's original claim, telling Variety that there were “no set chairs” while working with Nolan on “Oppenheimer.”
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