Among the many blockbuster filmmakers working today, it’s probably safe to say that at least publicly, Christopher Nolan is the most serious minded of the bunch. He’s thoughtful in the limited interviews that he does, careful about how his films are presented, and generally speaking doesn’t serve up too many laughs in his movies. However, according to Edgar Wright, in private, Nolan likes a good joke just like the rest of us.
On The Nerdist podcast, the “Baby Driver” director discussed his early career, which included getting behind the camera of the Christmas special of the U.K. sketch comedy “French and Saunders.” Surprisingly, there was no one more fascinated by that trivia than Nolan.
“I was talking to Chris Nolan the other day, and the amazing thing is that came up, and it’s funny to me that the director of ‘Inception’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ would go, ‘Wait, you directed the ‘French and Saunders’ Christmas special? How? Why? What?’ That’s the one thing you should know about him, he is a secret comedy nerd, which doesn’t always come across in the movies,” Wright said.
Frankly, it would be more surprising if Nolan — who likely grew up with Monty Python, “Fawlty Towers,” and other Brit comedy classics — wasn’t into comedy. However, while it’s not quite on the level of Terrence Malick being a huge “Zoolander” fan, the image of Nolan laughing himself silly during a sitcom is hard to picture. Still, we’d love if he programmed a series of comedies somewhere or really broke bad and just made one.
Listen to the full talk with Wright below.