At the risk of sounding obvious: Making The Odyssey was no walk in the park. In the film, Odysseus and his army go on a wild bender across Ithaca, Troy, and the rest of it by foot and Viking longship. For the cast, that meant schlepping across six countries—Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland and the US—to embrace what director Christopher Nolan called the “physicality of the real world.” We would probably call it a recipe for plantar fasciitis.
“Running through Troy, you know, it’s all stone. You’re in these sandals, and they’re very real,” Matt Damon told SiriusXM recently. It makes sense, then, that, in-between takes, you would really want to kick back in a trailer and wear a big, fluffy pair of boots. Perhaps even a nice pair of Uggs. After all that acting, you’ve really earned that shearling-lining.
Absolutely not, says Nolan. Speaking to CBS last week, the director revealed he had a “No Uggs On Set” policy. Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt had, apparently, wanted to turn up in something comfy. But the Oppenheimer director wasn’t on board. “Something like that can weirdly take you out of reality,” he said. “We want the actors to stay in the moment. Ugg boots are a signifier of modernity.”
Which, you know, true! And maybe this anti-Uggs policy really did help make The Odyssey such a doozy of a movie. But if you’re not cosplaying a Greek warrior in leather sandals, don’t take Nolan’s commandment as gospel. You are not on set of The Odyssey. You can, and should, wear your Uggs as much as you like.
Especially as they’re not just really, really comfy—they’re also pretty cool. If there’s one guy who can’t get enough of them, it’s Timothée Chalamet. To match his new mini mullet, TC has been spotted continuing to wear the Mini Uggs, slipping into them courtside to cheer on the Knicks. He takes after Adam Sandler, unofficial Uggs ambassador, who has been knocking around in his chocolate-brown boots for years.
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Designers like them, too. For his recent surf-and-turf Louis Vuitton show in Paris, Pharrell sent down some Ugg-inspired footwear down the sand runway. “Lest we forget, Uggs got their start as après-surf shoes in Australia,” noted GQ’s Eileen Cartter in her review. The same week, Willy Chavarria showed off a new Ugg collaboration coming later this year, complete with a whips-and-chains biker edge and modeled by Romeo Beckham.