Christopher Nolan's actors love this quality about him: 'He won't ask anyone to do anything that he's not 1,000% willing to do himself'

Christopher Nolan's quirks as a director are well known, from the absence of chairs on his sets to his refusal to use a smartphone or email.

Robert Downey Jr., who appeared in Nolan's historical epic "Oppenheimer" this past summer, says the 53-year-old director has a very specific quality that makes him a great leader.

"He won't ask anyone to do anything that he's not a thousand percent willing to do himself, twice as hard," Downey Jr. told Variety in a joint interview with costars Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt last month.

For Murphy, who received a Best Actor nomination at this year's Oscars for his portrayal of the film's titular 20th century physicist, it was an experience on a previous film he did with Nolan that particularly stood out to him.

"I remember doing this scene in 'Dunkirk' where my character is found on the bow of this sunken vessel," Murphy, who played a British soldier in the film, said. "All the marine guys and all the stunt guys were very unsure about me getting up there. It was bad weather. And so Chris was like 'Okay, I'll get up there.' So he got up there, did it all, and they checked it out with him doing it. And then he was like 'Okay, put Cillian up there.'"

Over the course of nearly 20 years working with Nolan — a run of a half dozen films that began with 2005's 'Batman Begins' — Murphy has developed a strong level of trust with the director. In an interview with GQ Magazine released this week, Murphy said he accepted the role of Oppenheimer before he ever received Nolan's hand-delivered script.

"He'd already called me and said he wanted me to play the part. And I had said yes — because I always say yes to him," he said.

A Nolan set, Murphy said, can feel "a bit like a private, intimate laboratory," something he appreciates as a performer.

"Even though he works at a tremendous pace, there's always room for curiosity and finding things out, and that's what making art should be about, you know?," he told GQ. "There's no phones—but also no announcement: Everybody just knows."

"Oppenheimer" earned 13 nominations at next month's Oscars, including acting nods for Murphy, Downey Jr. and Blunt, as well as Best Director for Nolan. The 3-hour 12-minute film is the frontrunner to take home the trophy for Best Picture.

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