Actors who have worked with Nolan say he leads by example.

“He’s not going to ask anyone to do anything that he’s not a thousand percent willing to do himself, twice as hard,” Robert Downey Jr. said in a 2024 Vanity Fair interview with fellow “Oppenheimer” stars Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt.

Murphy said one of the most memorable examples of Nolan’s leadership came during the filming of a scene for “Dunkirk,” when his character was found on the bow of a sunken ship.

Due to bad weather, the Marines and the stunt team were hesitant to let Murphy come aboard. Instead of asking Murphy to take the risk first, Nolan volunteered.

“Chris said, ‘Okay, I’ll go up there.’ So he went up there and did it all and they checked it while he did it. Then he said, ‘Okay, then put Cillian up there,'” Murphy said.

“That’s just one example. There are many of them,” said the actor, who has appeared in six Nolan films.

Nolan continued to rise to the occasion while filming “The Odyssey.” Instead of taking a helicopter, he made the same 300-meter walk to get to the stage as the rest of the cast and crew.