Christopher Nolan has ruled out directing a romantic comedy, telling Jimmy Fallon he would be “terrified” to try his hand at one of cinema’s toughest genres, although he revealed he was recently open to trying his hand at horror instead.
When he first appeared on Tonight’s showFallon jokingly pitched the idea of a romantic comedy to Nolan, prompting a strong response from the director.
“I think making a romantic comedy would be incredibly difficult,” Nolan said.
“I love watching these movies. But no, I think people who make comedies, people who make comedies, I think it’s one of the hardest things in the world to make people laugh that way.”
He then explained what sets comedy apart from the genres he usually works in, emphasizing that the immediacy of audience reaction is the main risk.
“When you’re making a movie, if I show people a movie and maybe they don’t react to parts of it, I’m like, ‘Ah, they don’t understand. It doesn’t matter.’ There’s no hiding behind that when you’re doing comedy. So I would be terrified to do something like that.”
Nolan, whose filmography spans sci-fi epics, historical dramas and superhero blockbusters, has never directed a straight comedy, although his films feature romantic elements woven into larger dramatic or action settings.
Although comedy remains off the table, Nolan has separately expressed a growing interest in horror.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporterhe said while working on some of The Odyssey‘s most disturbing sequences whetted his appetite for the genre “a lot”, although he cautioned that horror “needs to be approached with a lot of caution” to be done well.
The Odysseystarring Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway, is now in theaters and has surpassed $600 million at the worldwide box office.
