Christopher Nolan has been more engaged with early promotion for The Odyssey, which comes out on July 17. He’s already given a major interview to Time Magazine, and he recently spoke to 60 Minutes as well. In his 60 Minutes interview, Nolan confirmed something we’ve heard before, which is that he does not email and he does not own a smartphone. Whenever he talks about this sh-t, it’s a perfect encapsulation of the invisible labor of women. A man gets to be heralded as a genius and everyone finds it so charming that he doesn’t email or have a smartphone! Meanwhile, his wife Emma Thomas – who produces all of her husband’s films – is absolutely the one printing out emails for Nolan to read and she’s probably the one everyone calls to speak to Chris. Would Nolan be “allowed” to be so offbeat and low-tech if his wife wasn’t around to do all of that labor?
Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan has confirmed that he’s never owned a smartphone, or even sent an email. Nolan made the confession during a recent appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes, detailing why he has opted out of the modern way of life and is living life like it’s still the 1990s.
“I do not, I never have. I have no interest,” Nolan said in response to a question about whether he does email. Explaining his resistance to email, Nolan shared, “I get a lot of printed emails, when people say you’ve got to take a look at this, but no, I’ve never been particularly interested in that as a form of communication.”
Nolan was then asked about smartphones, another technological advance that he has shunned, admitting, “No, I’ve never had a smartphone; it’s getting harder and harder.”
It’s not WhatsApp, Uber or Deliveroo that’s making life harder for Nolan without a smartphone, with the filmmaker adding, “The return of the QR code has been quite tricky. The QR code had sort of gone away, then Covid brought it back, and now it’s everywhere. If you don’t have a smartphone, you can’t do much with a QR code.”
The Odyssey director did, however, reveal, “I carry a fliphone when I travel.”
When asked why he chooses to live like this in 2026 and if it’s “to keep the world at an appropriate distance and not letting it cave in on you”, Nolan said, “I think it’s more a thing of that I haven’t let the rest of the world cave in on me, I’m just living the same way that we all used to. To me, it’s just life as normal.”
He added of his stance, “I feel very fortunate to not be wearing the digital shackles, but such is life.”
“…Living life like it’s still the 1990s…” We had email in the ‘90s!! We had cell phones too, just not smartphones. Like… I understand the smartphone thing, especially if he uses a flip phone. That’s fine – people can still get in touch with him. But the no-email thing is frying me, and I’m sorry, but I find that incredibly unprofessional! You shouldn’t have to CALL him if you’re just trying to check in or give him a non-urgent update or you need to tell him some smaller thing which isn’t time-sensitive. That’s what email is for, that’s what texting is for. “I get a lot of printed emails” – his poor wife and his poor assistants. Imagine having to print out everything he gets because he thinks emails are beneath him.
Christopher Nolan admits he’s never used email or owned a smartphone. pic.twitter.com/wHC3AZKTGT
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 20, 2026
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Christopher Nolan , 49th Cesar Film Awards Ceremony PARIS, FRANCE – FEBRUARY 23. the 49th Cesar Film Awards at L Olympia on February 23, 2024 in Paris, France.,Image: 850251959, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Franck Castel/Avalon
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- Sir Christopher Nolan, filmmaker, of London, is awarded a knighthood for services to Film and wife Dame Emma Nolan, film producer, is awarded a DBE (Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) at Buckingham Palace, London, England, UK on Wednesday 18 December, 2024.,Image: 948077838, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no , Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – FEBRUARY 07: Emma Thomas and husband Christopher Nolan arrive at the 78th Annual Directors Guild Of America (DGA) Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 7, 2026 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 1073132554, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Pictured: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan , Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
At least he admits he’s fortunate..,
I’m baffled as to how he’s never tried to send an email though. The smartphone is kind of more boring to use than people are willing to admit and I can truly believe there are people who want nothing to do with one because you can anticipate the brain rot before even touching one, but email seems like something one would be somewhat curious about.
I wonder if he’s seen You’ve Got Mail.
I kind of get his… feeling? Part of it is there are soooo many emails at work that could have just not been sent that I still have to look at and read.
He has the money to have a human ’email-crap’ filter that only shows him what he really needs to see. Wish I did…
He’s in a really privileged position, but I think not dealing with emails probably does help him creatively.
I feel dealing with constant notifications affects my nervous system in a bad way and I feel I would be a better “creator” or “thinker” if I didn’t have to deal with so much technology, so if you’re a creative and productive person who can avoid email, you might as well. He’s probably got a higher creative output since everything is outsourced.
I also think he gets paid to do a different kind of work than the rest of us so it is what it is haha.
Lucky him! When you’re rich, you can delegate your account to an assistant or other employee to handle. Considering all the daily spam I get from the constant data breaches and companies selling our personal info to third parties, I don’t blame him.
Whatever he says. Ffs these people should shut up. So many rich, famous people, oh I don’t use a mobile phone, I don’t email, I don’t usea computer. Tbh these people disgust me. I worked either 2 or 3 jobs to care for parents and siblings with disabilities, plus I have a disability. Even IF privilege is vaguely acknowledged, it’s still being an asshole. They still think its a flex. Another person to ignore
THIS.
They can avoid email and phone because they have people doing it for them. They should simply STFU.
As soon as I saw the headline, I was like, “Oh, his wife or an assistant handles everything so he doesn’t have to.”
Yes, he doesn’t “avoid” having to engage with the world via email, calling or text anymore than the late QEII did. He simply delegates those chores to others, probably a team of people (most likely women) whose job it is to support the Great Man.
We deal with one client who won’t email, so we keep a tiny fax machine to print out things from him. It’s so silly.
Nolan knows not owning a smart phone and initiating emails gives him plausible deniability. Nothing can be traced back to Nolan directly—his “fingerprints” are nonexistent.
IIRC, Mango Mussolini, prior to “holding office” never emailed.
It does seem silly, but most of us have accumulated thousands upon thousands of hours maneuvering around computers, smartphones, emails, phishing attempts. Someone who never had to invest the time wouldn’t have a clue about even basic functions. I have recent experience in understanding just how true this is! (Setting up a newby’s email. Installing an app with a username and a password.) Believe me, keeping the fax machine is the simplest and most efficient way for you and for your customer! I’ll bet your customer has everyone’s phone number memorized.
wow, I see him completely differently now. What a privileged ass! The poor, regular working class souls that have to work with him. He better give them all amazing bonuses!
It does kind of create jobs for other people if he isn’t using email. I’d be willing to read and redistribute his emails if he’d hire me me haha. I’ve done this for departments, so I guess I don’t see this as any different haha. If he’s asking people to redistribute his emails for free that would be a problem. But there are admin people willing to get paid to do this kind of work. Or maybe he pays his wife – who knows. But as long as he’s not asking people to do volunteer work for him ( which, oddly enough, some charities do when it comes to email and for strange reasons they’re look at as sites of virtue), I think his desire to not look at email is fine. Unpaid labour is wrong, but if he’s paying people they’d either be doing this for him… or someone else. CEOs have people looking at their email even if they know how to use it, so I see this as the same job function.