Anne Hathaway, who worked with Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), recently claimed that the filmmaker does not allow chairs on his sets as he feels that "if they're sitting they are not working." Reacting to this, the Tenet director's representative issued a statement explaining Nolan's stance.

"For the record, the only things banned from [Nolan's] sets are cell phones (not always successfully) and smoking (very successfully)," Nolan's spokesperson told Indiawire. "The chairs Anne was referring to are the directors' chairs clustered around the video monitor, allocated on the basis of hierarchy not physical need. Chris chooses not to use his but has never banned chairs from the set. Cast and crew can sit wherever and whenever they need, and frequently do."

In an interaction with actor Hugh Jackman for Variety, Hathaway spoke on a range of issues and said Nolan's approach to filmmaking is one of her favourite ones. "He doesn't allow chairs, and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they're sitting, they are not working. I mean, he has these incredible movies in terms of scope and ambition and technical prowess and emotion. It always arrives at the end under schedule and under budget. I think he's onto something with the chair thing," Hathaway had mentioned during the interaction.

Following this comment, several people took to social media and questioned the filmmaker's approach.