Christopher Nolan has revealed that his 2014 sci-fi directorial, Interstellar, wasn’t universally well-embraced when it first hit the theatres. During a recent reunion of the director and the actor Timothee Chalamet, Nolan called the initial reception to the movie as “a little bit sniffy.”

The Academy Award Winning director reflected on how some critics and viewers received the film in a “slightly ambiguous way,” despite the film collecting “very good money around the world.” He also credited the critical and commercial success of his Inception (2010) and The Dark Knight trilogy, and the subsequent expectations that these movies had set, to the mixed reviews that Interstellar garnered.

During the discussion with Chalamet at the IMAX screening convention of Interstellar, Nolan recalled being described by a producer as “a cold guy who makes cold films” — a reputation he was determined to push away. The director revealed that the emotional foreground of love and family as an overarching theme of Interstellar was what “attracted” him to the film’s script.

Nolan, while reasoning the negative reviews, remarked that some critics, unsure of how to respond to a deeply sentimental and family-driven story from him, were also caught off guard with its emotional ambitions. Despite the mixed reviews, the film proved to be a box office hit, collecting nearly $681 million according to reports, which Nolan called, “an incredible relief and a humbling thing.” 

Christopher Nolan is awaiting the release of his upcoming directorial, The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway and Robert Pattinson among others. The team had recently announced that the film is scheduled to release on July 17. Timothee Chalamet, on the other hand, has been nominated for the Oscars in the Best Performance by an Actor in Leading Role category for Marty Supreme. The actor is also reprising his role as Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Three.