Christopher Nolan is no stranger to accolades for his many film accomplishments. Recently Nolan was awarded the director prize from he New York Film Critics Circle for his film Oppenheimer. During his acceptance speech Nolan spoke about the relationship filmmakers have with critics.

At the ceremony in New York City’s Tao Downtown Nolan said, “Directors have a complex emotional relationship with critics and criticism. A question we’re always asked is: Do we read reviews? Let’s start with the fact that I’m British. A typical family gathering will involve relatives saying to me, ‘You know, Christopher. You probably shouldn’t open The Guardian today.'”

But sometimes, avoiding criticism isn’t as easy to avoid. Nolan told a story about being in a Peloton class when the instructor, not knowing that Nolan was present in the class, criticized on of the director’s movies.

“I was on my Peloton. I’m doing. 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 went on to say, “When [film critic] Rex Reed takes a shit on your film he doesn’t ask you to work out! In today’s world, where opinions are everywhere, there is a sort of democratized, but I for one thing the critical appreciation of films shouldn’t be an instinct but it should be a profession.”

Nolan spoke about the difficult decisions that filmmakers have to make that may come at the expense of criticism or risks of misinterpretation. Nolan also said that it is the role of critics to provide meaning and contexts for works of media to viewers.

“In today’s world, as filmmakers you can’t hide behind authorial intent. You can’t say, ‘This is what I intended.’ We live in a world where the person receiving the story has the right to say what it means to them. I for one love that. It means the work should speak for itself. It’s not about what I say it is. It’s about what you receive it to be. In that world, the role of the professional critic, or the interpreter and the person who tries to give context for the reader… it’s incredibly important. I’ve never been so grateful for careful, considered and thoughtful writing about one of my films as I was for Oppenheimer.”