Christopher Nolan braces up for new role apart from direction

Christopher Nolan is now serving other duties too – apart from direction.

The Oppenheimer director, 55, is serving as the newly elected president of the Directors Guild of America. Nolan kicked off the ceremony with a passionate speech on Saturday night.

The director was elected in September for the presidential role of the Hollywood director’s union, and return to its annual awards show in a different way than he did two years ago, when he won the top prize for the Oppenheimer.

This time around, he began by showing appreciation to the guild’s board members and telling those in the room, “If you like the way the organisation is running and you see things you like, or more importantly if you don’t like the way we’re doing things, please come and get involved… we need as many voices as possible.”

Nolan noted how being a director can be “a lonely profession, and having us all come together on occasions like this is what helps us have strengths together in our conversations and our dealings with the studios. A lot of heavy hitters here tonight.”

He joked he wasn’t “supposed to talk too much about business” but took a moment to shout out the negotiations committee, who “have spent many, many months figuring out what’s going on in this crazy world of ours.”

The filmmaker, whose upcoming movie The Odyssey hits theaters in July, is navigating the union’s challenges amidst Hollywood’s turmoil. Production’s slowed, AI’s threatening jobs, and Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros. is shaking things up. Labor talks with studios and streamers loom, kicking off May 11 with SAG AFTRA and WGA negotiations.

“Tonight is a celebration of extraordinary work and it should be a very joyful one, but I do want to start by just acknowledging that our members are having very hard times. In 2024, our employment in our guild was down about 40 percent, and that was followed by another decline in ’25,” Nolan continued.

“The amount of money that people spend on our work, on entertainment, is very, very stable. Audiences are invested in us, we have to be sure that we’re able to repay that investment.”

“It’s the people in this room that were able to look forward and realize what an audience wants before they even know they wanted it. And no Pam and Mike, I’m not talking about you,” he teased to Warner Bros.’ Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca.

“The directors — we are the storytellers, we are the people who have to innovate on the screen and it’s very important that as our industry progresses, as new technologies and new forms of distributions come along, that we are always sensitive to how are our voices being put across, how can we get our messages across, how can we engage with that audience and pay that investment that they continue to give us. The best argument on that is to look at the work represented here tonight.”