Matt Damon says Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is operating on a massive scale, praising the filmmaker’s vision and world-building on the upcoming epic.
Damon stars in the film alongside Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway and Lupita Nyong’o. Written and directed by Nolan, The Odyssey adapts the ancient Greek epic into a large-scale fantasy action film shot for IMAX.
Speaking to Collider, Damon said he was struck by how thoroughly Nolan approached the film’s mythology, design and physical reality. “I don’t know how he did it,” Damon said. “I mean, the amount of vision that it took to build this world and how intentional it was.”
Damon said Nolan made it clear from their earliest conversations that he wanted the film to feel mythic while still being grounded. “He talked about it from the moment we had our first conversation about it, and how it’s myth, it’s this ancient world, but he wanted to ground it,” Damon noted.
That approach carried through every part of the production, from wardrobe to texture to the film’s overall visual language. “All of those conversations about the wardrobe and the layering and the layers of dirt and everything, it was about this comprehensive effort on the part of all the departments to just really world-build,” Damon said.
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The actor added that shooting the film for IMAX became the final piece in creating an immersive world. “Then, to be able to do it on IMAX, which was the goal, but we didn’t know if we’d do it,” Damon noted. “He didn’t announce that as we set off. I mean, we knew that was the intention, but we didn’t know if we’d be able to do it, and that is the final piece that just puts you there.”
The Odyssey was shot using a new IMAX camera system, which required actors to work with mirrors. Damon said the approach created a new technical challenge on set. “It’s really interesting because that was one of the big questions — is the mirror system going to work?” Damon said. “We knew technically it could work, but would it interfere with the ability to do an image?”
Damon’s collaboration with Nolan has become one of the actor’s most notable recurring creative relationships. He previously appeared in Interstellar and Oppenheimer, the latter famously interrupting an acting hiatus Damon had negotiated with his wife, Luciana.
Damon previously told Entertainment Weekly that he had agreed to take time off from acting, with one very specific exception. “I had negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off,” Damon shared. “The one caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called.”
Nolan, as it turned out, did call. And based on Damon’s comments, The Odyssey may be another example of why actors keep answering.
