After being called out by famed film director Christopher Nolan for a 2020 spin class she taught and criticized his film "Tenet," Peloton instructor Jenn Sherman is walking back her negative review.
Nolan recently won the prize for best director this year from the New York Film Critics Circle thanks to his blockbuster “Oppenheimer,” Variety reports, and used his speech to wax poetic about film criticism.
“Directors have a complex emotional relationship with critics and criticism,” he told the audience at the Jan. 4 ceremony in New York City and said the process of criticism is being democratized.
He cited a time he was riding his Peloton and the instructor started to talk negatively about one of his films.
“I was on my Peloton. I’m dying. And the instructor started talking about one of my films and said, ‘Did anyone see this? That’s a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again!’” Nolan said. “When (film critic) Rex Reed takes a s--- on your film he doesn’t ask you to work out!"
Though Nolan didn't name names, internet sleuths and Peloton fans immediately determined he was referring to a class Sherman had taught.
In the class, Sherman had said she may "need a manual" to understand "Tenet."
"Someone’s got to explain this. Yeah I’m not kidding, what the f--- was going on in that movie?" she said at the time. "Seriously, you need to be a neuroscientist to understand. And that’s two and a half hours of my life that I want back."
By Thursday evening, after Nolan's comments made headlines across the internet, Sherman had owned up to it on Instagram and was seemingly thrilled by the whole exchange.
"Huge day for me when I come to find out that the one and only Christopher Nolan, one of the leading filmmakers of the 21st century, knows who the hell I am," she said in a response video over a screenshot of the Variety story. "And then I read the article."
Sherman goes on to say that 2020 "was a dark time."
"I'm up on the platform, teaching my little class and I'm running my mouth off like I'm known to do," she said. "And I make a random comment about a movie that I've seen the night before. What do you think the odds are that the director of said movie would take that ride some four years later?"
Sherman said that she "may not have understood a minute of what the hell was going on in 'Tenet" but she did see "Oppenheimer" twice and loved it.
Sherman then invited Nolan to take a Peloton ride with her in person.
"You can critique my class. We'll have a great time," she quipped. "You'll sit front row and I promise you, it will be insult free!"
CORRECTION (Jan. 5, 2024 7:58 a.m.): An earlier version of this story misstated the name of Christopher Nolan's 2020 film. It's Tenet, not Tenent.
