To the Peloton instructor who criticized a Christopher Nolan movie during a recent class: you might want to check the leaderboard before weighing in next time.
On stage at the New York Film Critics Circle dinner in Manhattan Wednesday night, where Nolan accepted the best director prize for Oppenheimer, the filmmaker put his own spin on the adage that everyone’s a critic. “I was on my Peloton doing some high interval gasping, some shit,” he started, vaguely but accurately describing the sensation of being mid-workout. “The instructor started talking about one of my films, saying, ‘That’s a Couple of hours of my life I’ll never get back.’” After a pause for laughs, Nolan expressed his gratitude for actual movie critics: “When Rex Reed takes a shit on your film, he doesn’t ask you to work out more with him.”
Untelevised and with the winners announced a month in advance, the NYFCC dinner is a loose, lower pressure opportunity for the year’s biggest contenders to step onstage just days into the new year. Many of Wednesday night’s winners, Nolan included, are likely to have repeat victories at the Golden Globes on Sunday. But televised awards shows have infamous countdown clocks, and a lot of pressure to give a good soundbite. At the NYFCC dinner, meanwhile, speeches ran long, introductions were heartfelt—and according to NYFCC chair Matt Singer, the whole thing wrapped up 15 minutes early anyway.
It’s traditional for each of the night’s honorees to be introduced by another high-profile figure in the film world, making room for some surprising stories that might never otherwise make it to an awards show stage. Richard Jenkins was on hand to introduce The Holdovers star Da’Vine Joy Randolph, the night’s best supporting actress winner, and revealed that after they’d worked together on one film, he specifically requested her for a role in his next one. (They both appear in the 2020 films Kajillionaire and The Last Shift, though nobody specified which came first.) “We actors have a way of seeking out greatness in other actors,” Jenkins said onstage. “It’s called jealousy.”
Supporting actor winner Charles Melton was seated at the Netflix table next to the actor who introduced him, Lucas Hedges, who recalled meeting the May December star over karaoke years ago. “Like Todd Haynes [the director of May December], I had no idea what to do with how good looking he was,” Hedges said. Praising Melton’s charisma and talent—the former Riverdale star’s karaoke song was “Halo,” an incredible flex—Hedges added a warning: “Now, if anyone knows anything about stardom or being a successful actor, everything I just said about Melton is as much a red flag as it is beautiful. Melton could so easily be a monster. But this is not who he is. I can say this with certainty: Melton deserves his light.”