Trivia
The Odyssey
Directed by Christopher Nolan · starring Travis Scott, Matt Damon and Robert Pattinson
- 15 facts
- 2026
The Odyssey: trivia
All 15 facts
- 1
'Batman Begins' was the consolation prize
Warner Bros. first hired Christopher Nolan to direct 'Troy', but Wolfgang Petersen, who had developed it, wanted it back once the studio dropped his Batman vs Superman film. Nolan was offered 'Batman Begins' instead, and 'Troy' went ahead with Brad Pitt. Nolan told Empire he'd been carrying around ideas about how to shoot the Trojan horse ever since, and he finally used them in 'The Odyssey'.
- 2
A film born from a dog
After his children left home, Christopher Nolan adopted a chocolate Labrador called Charlie. On Stephen Colbert's show he explained that he made 'The Odyssey' because the 'Odyssey' is "the ultimate dog story", and his script gives Argos, Odysseus' faithful dog, a bigger part than the poem does. Even the working title used during the shoot was a nod to Charlie.
- 3
None of the rumours were right
Until Universal announced 'The Odyssey' in December 2024, nobody knew what Christopher Nolan's new film was about. It was supposedly going to be a period vampire story, a remake of 'Blue Thunder' or an adaptation of 'The Prisoner', a project the director had been attached to years earlier. None of it was true. Nolan later said rumours were the downside of never telling people what they're working on, though he admitted he enjoyed them.
- 4
Tickets on sale a year early
Tickets for the IMAX 70mm screenings of 'The Odyssey' went on sale on 17 July 2025, exactly a year before release, something no major studio had done before. According to Variety, 95% of the seats were gone in under 24 hours, most of them in the first hour, and some were resold on eBay for up to 300 dollars.
- 5
Matt Damon's real beard
For 'The Odyssey', Matt Damon suggested a fake beard, but Christopher Nolan wouldn't have it: "I'm not a big fan of wigs and fake beards. You want the physicality of real hair, so that you can put a firehose on the guy", he told Empire. Damon kept it for about a year, and his kids said he looked like Santa Claus. He also slimmed down to his high school weight for the part.
- 6
The only one who asked to read the script
The whole cast signed on to 'The Odyssey' without reading the script, except Robert Pattinson. He told GQ that impostor syndrome made him hesitate and that he was the only one who asked to read it before saying yes, which surprised Christopher Nolan, since everyone else had simply agreed. Pattinson had already worked with the director on 'Tenet'.
- 7
Tom Holland played messenger
Christopher Nolan asked Tom Holland whether he'd be offended if Zendaya played Athena, and then asked him to pass the offer on. Holland also told People that she was the one who talked him into his own part in 'The Odyssey': "Z said, 'I'll leave you if you don't do The Odyssey'".
- 8
A four foot six double
For the fight with the Laestrygonians, the giants were seven foot stuntmen and the humans were doubles under five feet tall. Matt Damon's double was Devyn Dalton, a four foot six stuntwoman, and it's her seen from behind on one of the posters for 'The Odyssey'. Damon revealed it on a podcast: "My double was a woman, a female stunt performer who had the greatest arms I've ever seen".
- 9
A Cyclops straight out of Goya
The Polyphemus in 'The Odyssey' is based on Goya's 'Saturn Devouring His Son'. It was made with animatronics, puppetry and an on-set performance by Bill Irwin, a trained mime and clown who had already brought TARS to life in 'Interstellar'. The soldiers it eats were small dummies with breakable skeletons and bags of fake blood.
- 10
Odysseus sails a Viking ship
Odysseus' Greek warship is actually the 'Draken Harald Hårfagre', a longship built in Norway, launched in 2012 and sailed across the Atlantic in 2016. For 'The Odyssey' its dragon head came off and it sailed to every location. A few historians pointed out the anachronism: there are roughly two thousand years between the Bronze Age and the Viking era.
- 11
No phones on set
Christopher Nolan doesn't allow phones on his sets, and he doesn't own a smartphone himself. Tom Holland said that during 'The Odyssey' he couldn't keep up with a match, so he kept going to the crew members he knew had sneaked their phones in and asking them for the score.
- 12
Anne Hathaway came by helicopter
Some of the locations for 'The Odyssey' were so remote you could only reach them by boat, on foot or by helicopter. At one of them, Anne Hathaway was flown in while everyone else, Tom Holland included, hiked down the mountain. She admitted she kept quiet whenever the others complained about the walk, and Holland teased her about it in an interview.
- 13
Spanish filmmakers against the Sahara shoot
In July 2025, scenes for 'The Odyssey' were shot near Dakhla, in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. The FiSahara festival published a manifesto signed by Javier Bardem, Luis Tosar, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Icíar Bollaín, Carolina Yuste and Juan Diego Botto, among others, asking Christopher Nolan to remove those scenes unless the Sahrawi people consented. The Moroccan Cinematographic Center, on the other hand, boasted that it was the first major American film shot there.
- 14
Gods without thunderbolts
Christopher Nolan considered casting actors as gods hurling thunderbolts from Olympus, but dropped the idea. Apart from Athena, the gods in 'The Odyssey' show themselves through storms, wind and rough seas, because what mattered, he explained, was seeing them the way people at the time would have. The director called it a major creative breakthrough.
- 15
No orchestra, plus Albanian shepherds
Christopher Nolan didn't want the usual sword and sandal orchestra, so Ludwig Göransson spent a week in southern Albania recording iso-polyphony, a traditional singing style listed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage, and used it for the Sirens' voices in 'The Odyssey'. He also recorded the fyell, a flute local shepherds have played for centuries, replicas of ancient Greek lyres and auloi, and 35 bronze gongs.