Academy Award-nominee Bradley Cooper has an on-set rule that has some of his fans squirming in their seats.
In his recent Directors on Directors chat with legendary filmmaker Spike Lee for Variety, the Maestro star shared his "no-chairs" rule on production sets, which some moviegoers found to be cruel.
“There’s no chairs on sets,” Cooper said around the 14:30-minute mark of his 46-minute sit-down with Lee. “I’ve always hated chairs, and I feel like your energy dips the minute you sit down in the chair. So [an] apple box is a very nice way to sit and everybody’s together.”
To Lee's shock, Cooper also revealed that he doesn't allow a video village on sets, a behind-the-scenes area with monitors and screens for playback that surrounds the director's chair.
"There's no video village, I hate that," Cooper said.
"So if me and you do a film, there's no video village?" Lee asked.
"If you're with me, yeah, there's no video village," Cooper joked. "If I ask you to come act, then, yeah."
Cooper's comments sent social media into an uproar, with some accusing him of ableism for not letting his production crew sit down. To date, Cooper's directorial efforts are 2018's A Star Is Born and Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, which premieres December 20th on Netflix. In the latter film, Cooper was the center of controversy for wearing a prosthetic nose to play Bernstein, who was Jewish.
Another director who allegedly shares Cooper's disdain for chairs is Christopher Nolan, as revealed by Anne Hathaway in 2020. "He doesn't allow chairs, and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they're sitting, they're not working," the actress told Hugh Jackman in their Actors on Actors interview.
She continued, "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."
