As perhaps the most recognizable president of the Directors Guild of America since Frank Capra led the union in the late 1930s, Christopher Nolan has a lot on his plate.
Nolan is poised to steer his guild through a high-profile set of negotiations with the major Hollywood studios in May, following SAG-AFTRA and the WGA’s own talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which begin next week. This will mark the first round of bargaining since wrapping up the historically long writers and actors strikes in 2023, and already so much has changed.
Studios are inking deals and investing billions in AI companies, physical production levels are still down even as states like California have tried to incentivize companies to return to the U.S., and all three unions are facing serious problems with their health and pension plans after several years of high unemployment. These are just a few of the intractable issues that Nolan is faced with as the newly elected president, never mind the fact that in just six months he’ll release one of the biggest films of his career.
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“I’ve been involved with the DGA for many years, and I’ve found it so rewarding to spend time with my fellow directors, to address the issues of the day, to listen to different opinions, to, frankly, gain other insights on other people’s experience in the industry,” he said when asked during a recent interview with the trades why he’d take on such a direct role in the union at this moment in his career. “Directing is a lonely profession. You don’t tend to spend a lot of time with other directors. So to come to the DGA and actually be able to have real conversations about our concerns, whether they’re creative or within the business, it’s been a really rewarding part of my life.”
Nolan has been quite active in the DGA. Until he ran for president, he served on the national board of directors for a decade. Also, during the past several years, he was the chair of the AI committee tasked with liaising with the studios about their future plans for AI use.
Last week, Nolan sat for a lengthy chat with Deadline and our sister sites Variety and The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the union’s negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. He responded to Deadline’s reporting that the AMPTP might offer five-year deals in exchange for a cash infusion into the unions’ health plans and weighed in on AI, tax incentives, the potential sale of Warner Bros. and more.
On his decision to raise his hand to lead the union, Nolan said: “I think the challenges of the industry are well documented. The shifts in the way in which our work is being distributed and the way it’s being produced, all these changes over the last 10 to 15 years, and the last five years in particular, they’re posing these challenges. It seemed to me that I’d have something to bring to the table in terms of trying to help represent the members through what is a turbulent period.”
Most of these issues cannot be solved at the bargaining table alone, but still, it’s clear Nolan has his work cut out for him as the DGA’s current contract expiration approaches on June 30. Just over two weeks later, Nolan’s star-studded adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey will arrive in theaters.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker attributed his ability to take on the task to “a lot of people doing a lot and able to pick up slack when I’m not able to be there, be around.”
“I have a tremendous amount of support from the past presidents, from Russ [Hollander, national executive director], from staff, from the board, very active vice presidents, very active members of the councils, both Western and Eastern,” Nolan said. “We’ve always valued having working members as leadership.”
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As Nolan points out, while he might be among the most familiar DGA presidents to a general audience, he is far from the only actively working director to take the position. Nolan succeeds Lesli Linka Glatter, who was elected to two consecutive two-year terms from 2021-25 and directed numerous episodes of television during her tenure.
“When you work on features — and I have a big movie coming out this year and everything — it’s sort of a very obvious relationship between how busy I am, what’s going on. But when you look at the past presidents, they were unbelievable at doing this job, and they managed to do an incredible job,” he continued.
Sure, the Oppenheimer and Interstellar director might have to lose a little more sleep to pull it off, but, he emphasizes, “I see the value of having active working members run the DGA.”
“I see the value of that, and so I’m prepared to knuckle and figure it out,” he said. “But the truth is, this union is very well run. The staff is incredible. There’s a lot of support for me in my position, and a lot of help from the past [and] present.”
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Ha! The rich-upper class DGA members elected a rich-upper class egomaniac to roll out the welcome mat for every corporation, to keep their rich-upper class status.
No shot this man’s leadership will prove anything but feckless, divisive, and weak. We won’t see a single DGA member at any picket lines. They like it that way. They’d rather everyone else shrivel up and cease to exist than to stand once in solidarity with their union kin.
The DGA is a joke. Any “union” that has never been nor ever will be a legitimate threat to strike is not a union. It’s basically a club where a small percentage reap most of the benefit, as leadership generally exists to serve their own interests, like city council members that get elected so they can change a zoning law that will benefit their real estate business. The DGA’s main purpose seems to be its awards show and having screenings where Directors all form a circle and pat each other on their backs while telling each other how brilliant and important they are. It’s like a club where you pay your dues so you can come use the tennis courts once in a while but that’s about it. Brushwood without the snobs vs the slobs thing. Any strides it has made in recent years it made on the backs of the WGA and IATSE.