“I don’t know how the hell we’re going to do this. I don’t know how the hell we’re going to do this.”
It was Matt Damonfirst reaction after reading the script for Christopher Nolan’s film Odysseyan adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem, in which Damon plays the central figure, Odysseus. The story follows a Greek king’s return home after the Trojan War, where he encounters monsters and mythical creatures in an attempt to reunite with his wife and son. Damon and his colleagues Anne Hathaway And Tom Hollandas well as director Christopher Nolanjoined Jacqueline Coley to talk about Nolan’s new film.
Explaining the challenge of the role, Damon continued: “But a lot of them were Christopher Nolan challenges, and I thought, ‘I’ll just show up and be ready.’ I really thought we were in charge of this area, right? So, in a big film like this, there are all these elements involved, and I am one of them. But if I can take everything off his plate and put it on mine, it relates to that one element so he doesn’t have to worry about it, it frees up his bandwidth to engage in all these other things.”
(Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/©Universal Pictures)
Working on a film of this magnitude is a rare opportunity for any actor, and all three in attendance described the challenges, from understanding their characters’ motivations to working so closely with IMAX cameras for the first time. Regarding the latter, Nolan explained how he had to work with the IMAX team to develop new technology that would make the notoriously loud cameras quiet enough to film intimate scenes and character work, something that had never been possible before. In fact, this was what worried Nolan the most.
“We made films like Dark Knightlike Interstellarover the years who have used this format on a large scale for a kind of epic storytelling, and we did it in Odyssey. What’s new to me and will be new to audiences is some of the scenes that these guys play in the most intimate, most personal way, where we really get close to their characters and feel like we’re in the same room with them… I think those are some of the most amazing and exciting scenes in the film.”
Watch the full Big Ticket interview above to see Christopher Nolan, Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway talk about how Nolan’s passion for IMAX began, how much trust he put in the stars to let them shine, and how the script influenced their character choices.
Odyssey opens in theaters July 17. Get your tickets here.
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