Imagine you’ve been working so hard on a project for months that all you want to do once it’s done is burn off any remaining stress by hopping on a stationary bike and getting a nice bit of exercise in.
Now imagine that, in the middle of your ride, an instructor comes on the screen to tell you how awful your work was. You’d have to feel a bit like Tim Robinson in the Brian’s Hat sketch.
That is precisely what famed director Christopher Nolan said happened to him. In the middle of a Peloton class, his instructor went off on a tangent about one of Nolan’s projects — Nolan didn’t say which one — calling it a complete waste of time while very likely unaware that Nolan was in the class.
The 53-year-old director recalled the story while accepting an award for best director for Oppenheimer from the New York Film Critics Circle. According to Variety’s Zack Sharf, Nolan was praising professional film critics when he dropped in this nugget:
Nolan summed up his appreciation for film criticism by telling a story about how he was once using his Peloton for a workout class only to have the instructor pan one of his movies. The Oscar nominee did not disclose which film it was, but clearly the Peloton instructor had no idea Nolan was in his virtual class that day.
“I was on my Peloton. I’m dying. And the instructor started talking about one of my films and said, ‘Did anyone see this? That’s a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again!’” Nolan said. “When [film critic] Rex Reed takes a [expletive] on your film he doesn’t ask you to work out!”
Fair enough!
Of course, the internet couldn’t just let the fun little anecdote stand on its own. Immediately people began to wonder which film the instructor could’ve been talking about and a clear consensus emerged: Tenet.
UPDATE: We have video confirmation that the film in question was Tenet, because some intrepid sleuths found the class Nolan was in and the comments are even worse than he made them sound.
Warning: NSFW Langauge
They found the Peloton instructor and she’s brutal pic.twitter.com/i79Css1NLG https://t.co/dRcYUakC3C
— Jacob Oller (@JacobOller) January 4, 2024
The 2020 film staring John David Washington and Robert Pattinson is still dividing audiences due to some plot holes that made the story a bit difficult to follow — though it clearly still has some passionate supporters.
Everyone knows they were talking about Tenet because Nolan has only made one bad movie https://t.co/G9b1EpPdSn
— Jack McBryan (@McBDirect) January 4, 2024
Me as a spin instructor: “Man, Tenet is so good, huh?!? Probably Christopher Nolan’s best film ever, as I right…” pic.twitter.com/nOF1mdFyeG
— J🌐HN (@JohnPistotti) January 4, 2024
I will become a Peloton instructor specifically to let Christopher Nolan know that I liked Tenet https://t.co/tHTxutoPaZ
— David Nathan W (@dnwilliams) January 4, 2024
it was definitely tenet
— Tahan (@Lcy_Shen) January 4, 2024
Nolan vs. his Peloton instructor https://t.co/zjtubfdaIt pic.twitter.com/VS9S8nSYuu
— Christian Becker (@TheAmazingBeck) January 4, 2024
“Gee, I wonder which film he meant…” https://t.co/n1uQsDkATU pic.twitter.com/bFR5yp2kIQ
— Dave Flynn (@Dave_K_Flynn) January 4, 2024
Chris is also probably mad at Peloton bc I took the username he wanted: rob_pattinspin https://t.co/ubh1NyQ2PE
— Amanda Hasaka (@ahasaka) January 4, 2024
I love this because it’s giving me the mental image of Christopher Nolan riding an exercise bike still in a suit and wiping his face with a scarf instead of a towel https://t.co/WuE9wLWfh9
— AlexH (@DryToast2810) January 4, 2024
https://t.co/qi5ETQ8KeZ pic.twitter.com/Eiem2GnKYR
— Jay Dee (@JayDeeWriting) January 4, 2024
