Guy Pierce says Warner Bros. stopped him from working with Christopher Nolan after Memento

Guy Pearce has nothing but good things to say about his Memento director Christopher Nolan, whom he calls a “towering intellect.” And yet despite the star of the film that solidified Nolan’s reputation as a leading filmmaker of the 21st century, the pair haven’t worked together since. According to Pearce in a new interview with Vanity Fair, that’s down to industry sabotage. 

Pearce says he hasn’t kept in close touch with Nolan, “but he spoke to me about roles a few times over the years. The first Batman and The Prestige.” Unfortunately, though, “there was an executive at Warner Bros. who quite openly said to my agent, ‘I don’t get Guy Pearce. I’m never going to get Guy Pearce. I’m never going to employ Guy Pearce,'” he shares. “So, in a way, that’s good to know. I mean, fair enough; there are some actors I don’t get. But it meant I could never work with Chris.”

What was this exec’s problem? “I think he just didn’t believe in me as an actor,” Pearce guesses. He claims he was even flown to London “to discuss the Liam Neeson role for Batman,” but he suspects that while he was in the air “it was decided” that he wouldn’t be cast. “So I get there and Chris is like ‘hey, you want to see the Batmobile and get dinner?'” The actor recalls. 

Nolan may have been beholden to the studio’s whims when it came to casting (particularly with some juicy IP like Batman), but he certainly didn’t share that executive’s assessment. In a 2002 interview with The Guardian, the filmmaker admitted his script for Memento was “very cold” and that Pearce brought “a much greater degree of emotion, so that other people less interested in the plot could still get something out of the film.” Nolan added, “Guy’s performance in Memento is often not appreciated—he certainly never got the recognition for his performance that I did for my screenplay—which is unfortunate because he brought so much to it.”

Clearly, that hater WB exec did not much appreciate Pearce’s work in Memento. And who knows where that person is today, or whether they’re still blocking Pearce’s opportunities. We do know that Christopher Nolan is not still at Warner Bros., so perhaps, as Pearce put it to jokingly end the VF interview, “now my time has come!”