Christopher Nolan reveals the truth behind the Brad Pitt Memento rumours

The Dark Knight trilogy director Christopher Nolan has revealed that Brad Pitt helped to get his 2000 mystery thriller Memento made.

Speaking at this year's Slamdance festival, the indie sister of Sundance, the director explained where the much-mooted rumours that Pitt was in the running for the lead role came from.

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"Truthfully he did read the script," said Nolan. "I mean that’s where the story comes from, is he read the script and he met with me about it when he didn’t have any reason to know who I was or anything about it. And nothing came of it. Other than him being interested in it, I think within the sort of [talent] agency world where the script was circulating, just sort of perked up a bit of interest in what was a very obscure project, otherwise. And I think really that’s how it came to Guy Pearce’s attention, and you know, he sort of got the ball rolling.

"It was a very nice thing that he liked it."

The Inception director also spoke about being an indie filmmaker, and told the audience of fellow filmmakers and fans that story is what's most important to him in a project.

"There are a lot of filmmakers that have taken a very different approach than me," he said.

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"My friend Steven Soderbergh for example, who helped me with my first studio film, he’s always made a very, very specific point about going back and forth between different sizes of film. I’ve only ever been driven by story, you know. A set of characters that’d grab me. And I try not to really think too much about why I want to make a film. It’s just if you know you want to make it, then you sort of go for it. And I think there’s also a sense in which if you have the opportunity to work on a big scale, that opportunity’s not always going to be there, so I certainly avail myself of it while it’s there.

"I would never want to go to making a smaller film in an artificial sense. I would never want to do it for the sake of it. I’d be very very thrilled and happy to do it if I found the right story and the right thing in the back of my head that I wanted to get across, and I’m pretty sure that’s something I will do eventually. But I’m not in any rush. I like working the way I’m working."

Nolan's latest project, sci-fi film Interstellar, is set to hit cinemas in November this year.