When it comes to directing, everyone has their own style, but that also applies off camera when directors establish rules on their set. Bradley Cooper distinguished himself in the genre during the filming of “Maestro”, his film for Netflix.
Bradley Cooper returned to his director’s chair for his second film Maestro released last week on Netflix. Except maybe he didn’t have a chair at all!
Indeed, the filmmaker and actor from Maestro and A Star Is Born discussed his working process in a conversation with Spike Lee for Variety’s “Directors on Directors” video collection. And he reveals that you can’t find chairs on the sets of the films he directs.
“There are no chairs on film sets“, he said. “I’ve always hated chairs, and I feel like your energy goes down as soon as you sit down. So an apple crate is a very nice way to sit and everyone is together. There is no video village, I hate that“.
The video village he refers to refers to the director’s monitors and the area immediately surrounding them on set.
Bradley Cooper isn’t the only director with a supposed no-chairs policy. In 2020, Anne Hathaway claimed that Christopher Nolan “don’t allow chairs“, remember Entertainment Weekly.
She explained that “his reasoning is this: if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they sit, they are not working. He makes films that are incredible in terms of scale, ambition, technical prowess and emotion. They always arrive on time and on budget. I think he’s on the right track with this chair thing.“.
However, a representative for Christopher Nolan later said that Anne Hathaway’s comments had been misinterpreted. “For the record, the only things prohibited on the sets [de Nolan] are cell phones (not always successfully) and cigarettes (very successfully)“spokeswoman Kelly Bush Novak told IndieWire.
“The chairs Anne was referring to are the directors’ chairs grouped around the video monitor, assigned based on hierarchy and not physical need. Chris chose not to use his own but never banned chairs from the set. The cast and crew can sit where they want and when they want, which they often do.“
But another voice contradicts these statements. That of Robert Downey Jr.. The actor recently said that there were no chairs on the Oppenheimer set.
“With Nolan, we were testing on IMAX, which is crazy“Downey said.”You went back to sit on your set chair – no, you didn’t, because there were no set chairs!“
Bradley Cooper explains his chair theory to Spike Lee in this short video: