How "Odyssey" was filmed — such a scale impresses even Hollywood. Matt Damon and Robert Pattinson had to go through real trials
Director Christopher Nolan, who gained complete freedom of action after the triumph of "Oppenheimer", has adapted one of the main poems of Western civilization — the story of Odysseus's return home after the Trojan War.
Photo: imdb.com
The world premiere of the adventure film "Odyssey", written and directed by Christopher Nolan, is scheduled for July 15. The role of Odysseus — the king of Ithaca, who embarks on a long and dangerous journey home after the Trojan War — is played by Matt Damon. For the role of Telemachus — the son of the main character, who waits for his father in Ithaca all this time — Nolan invited Tom Holland (known for his role as Spider-Man).
Robert Pattinson played Antinous — one of Penelope's suitors who settled in Odysseus's house and, during his absence, tried to seize his power and wife. Penelope was played by Anne Hathaway, and other cast members include Jon Bernthal, Zendaya, and a host of other Hollywood stars.
Matt Damon as Odysseus. Photo: imdb.com
A major article in GQ, based on interviews with Nolan, Damon, Holland, and Pattinson, details how the film, with a budget of 250 million dollars, was made. If their recollections are to be believed, the filming resembled a grand expedition more than a typical blockbuster production.
The entire production took 91 days and spanned six countries — Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland, and the USA. During this time, Nolan shot about 610 kilometers of IMAX film — a scale that almost no one can afford today.
Tom Holland as Telemachus. Photo: imdb.com
Ithaca on a mountaintop
Despite this, the director deliberately avoided simple solutions. Nolan has reiterated for years that real locations always look better on screen than computer graphics. According to him, he is constantly looking for "a moment of magic in a real place" — a real sunset, a real castle, a real landscape.
Therefore, for Ithaca, not a studio or a digital set was chosen, but a real medieval castle, Castello di Santa Caterina, on the Italian island of Favignana, off the coast of Sicily.
The problem was that this castle is high up on a mountain. A narrow zigzagging path leads to it, taking about 45 minutes to ascend. The road was too narrow for equipment. Initially, the producers tried to arrange for the construction of a new road. But the project was never realized.
Then Nolan simply decided to work with the conditions that existed. Everyone who could walk up had to walk up. Equipment and some staff were transported by helicopters. For two hundred crew members, a separate platform for lunches even had to be built on the mountainside.
As a result, each workday began with an ascent of almost 300 meters uphill. The actors followed the same route as the technical staff. Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson climbed in costumes and sandals. Nolan later joked that every day he watched 29-year-old Holland easily outpace him on that road.
Robert Pattinson as Antinous. Photo: imdb.com
According to Matt Damon, the director's approach was a real shock for him. The actor, who has worked on approximately eighty film sets in his career, claimed that any of the "Odyssey" locations would have been the most difficult location in any other film. But for Nolan, such places came one after another.
The filming in Morocco also made a strong impression on the actors. Tom Holland recalled that, when he first arrived on set, he walked for a long time along the beach and saw endless rows of Greek warriors, ships, and Trojan War sets before him. He even started asking assistants where the film crew itself was located. Everything looked not like a blockbuster, but like a historical reconstruction of unimaginable scale.
Holland later admitted that it was then that he first understood the true scope of the project. But for Nolan, it's never just about scale. In his interviews, he has repeatedly explained that the main thing for him is to create in the viewer a sense of physical presence in the film's events.
Minimum deception
This philosophy largely explains his long-standing commitment to the IMAX format. Nolan believes that a large frame on film allows for the transmission of a special sense of the world's materiality. The viewer feels as if they are not just observing events, but are alongside the characters, can feel the scale of the area, the texture of objects, and even imagine the smells, sounds, and temperature of the surrounding environment.
Christopher Nolan (left) on the set of "Odyssey" next to an IMAX camera. Photo: imdb.com
For "Odyssey", Nolan asked IMAX to develop a modified camera that could be used not only for large panoramic shots but also for regular dialogue scenes. Traditional IMAX cameras are too noisy for such work, so engineers created a special sound-insulating casing. When it started to prevent actors from seeing each other during conversation, Nolan suggested using a mirror system that allowed them to see their partner's face next to the camera lens.
This technical solution reflects the director's general approach well. Nolan strives to ensure that actors deal as little as possible with the conventions of the filming process and as much as possible with the real environment.
Anne Hathaway as Penelope. Photo: imdb.com
Tom Holland later said that Nolan almost never asks actors to simply imagine things that aren't there. If a character needs to react to something, the director tries to make sure it actually exists before their eyes or at least happens nearby.
Robert Pattinson recalled one such scene. His character was supposed to hear something in the distance and pay attention to it. The actor expected that he would simply be shown the right direction or that the necessary sound would be added later during editing.
However, Nolan announced that nothing would be imitated. A few dozen meters from the camera, Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway — the on-screen Odysseus and Penelope — were indeed performing their scene. Pattinson barely saw them but heard what was happening and reacted to a real event, not an imaginary signal.
Photo: imdb.com
Many other episodes of the film were organized in the same way. Matt Damon recounted that Nolan fundamentally sought to film scenes in the conditions in which they occur according to the plot. If Odysseus gets caught in a storm, that means a real sea and a real ship. If, according to the poem, he is tied to the mast during his encounter with the Sirens, then the actor is indeed tied to the mast of a real ship in the open sea.
According to Damon, this is precisely what creates a special atmosphere on set: actors do not need to imagine the circumstances in which their characters find themselves because they are physically placed in those circumstances.
Discipline on set
Nolan's organization was an equally important part of the film. Holland, who spent the last few years in the Marvel universe, was impressed by how precisely everything was planned. According to him, the director could answer any question instantly.
The first scene Holland was involved in was scheduled to be filmed over two days. But already during lunch, Nolan announced that everything would be finished in one day. By evening, the scene was indeed shot.
After returning to work on the new Spider-Man film, Holland began to refer to Nolan's experience during discussions with Sony management and producers.
The last film of such a scale?
The final days of filming took place in the USA — at Universal Studios, in the enormous Falls Lake water tank.
There, the team sank a full-scale replica of Odysseus's ship. By that point, the project participants had already traversed the mountains of Sicily, the windy coasts of Scotland, and the cold locations of Iceland. Many hoped that the studio would be the easiest stage of the work. But Nolan remained true to himself.
Two powerful jet engines were used to film the storm scenes, unleashing torrents of water on the actors.
Actor Ryan Hurst, director Christopher Nolan, and Tom Holland during the making of "Odyssey". Photo: imdb.com
As Damon recalled, even in the completely controlled studio environment, it was cold, wet, and very uncomfortable. That's why, looking back, the actor called "Odyssey" an almost unique phenomenon for modern Hollywood.
In his opinion, today only a few directors remain who are capable of securing the resources for such cinema: shot on film, in real locations, with real ships, a real sea, real mountains, and without attempts to replace all of it with computer graphics.
And that is precisely why, already during the film's production, he had the feeling that he was participating not just in another blockbuster, but in the culmination of an entire era of grand studio filmmaking.
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