11 Of The Best Behind-The Scene Stories From The Odyssey's Cast

Amy GloverMon, August 3, 2026 at 10:31 AM UTC

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Even though Christopher Nolan’sThe Odyssey has already proven well worth its $250 million (£187.5 million) budget, the director said filming it took a hefty toll.

“People were just exhausted,” Nolan shared in a The Daily Show interview, explaining that his cast and crew stopped shooting a week earlier than expected.

“They’d been through it... it took the right time to make the film. We had enough time to make it,” he added.

So what did it really take to finish the monumental blockbuster on time and under budget?

Here are just a few of our favourite behind-the-scenes stories from the cast:

Nolan didn’t cheap out on extras

Speaking to the British Film Institute (BFI), Matt Damon (who plays Odysseus) said: “The first day I shot was Essaouira in Morocco, walking over the dunes on that beach and seeing thousands of people, because obviously Chris doesn’t put people in by computer.

“If [the script] says ‘thousands of people’, there are going to be thousands of people. The scale of it was immediately jaw-dropping.”

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In the same interview, Anne Hathaway (Penelope) shared: “For all of my scenes I was in a cast of several hundred people every day, and we would come in and go through the works and everybody would be in full costume.”

Back pain was the real odyssey

Damon also told Andy Cohen that the film’s footwear affected some of its cast members.

“Running through Troy, it’s all stone, and you’re in these sandals, and they’re very real. And yeah, they’d come off, our feet were all scuffed up.

“But more than the little scratches and cuts on your feet, it was the back pain for us... It was a heavy Advil movie in those weeks we were doing that action stuff,” he joked.

*That* Samantha Morton scene was almost as intense to film as it was to watch

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Samantha Morton (Circe)’s standout scene, in which she gruesomely turns Odysseus’ men into pigs, wasn’t CGI, stars Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland (Telemachus) told IMDb.

“When they turned the people into pigs? That’s all real... it’s all animatronics” Tom said.

Anne agreed: “All of that sculpting that she’s doing? That’s not CGI.”

“It’s an animatronic head, and she... like pulls their jaws apart and stuff. That’s real,” Tom continued.

“They worked with an artist to create something that Samantha could sculpt with live on camera,” clarified Anne.

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Matt Damon was “embarrassed” about his armour faux pas

In an interview with TODAY, Matt Damon said he made an accidental faux pas early in his time on the set.

The castle in the film is real, and involved a gruelling hike.

“Everyone started coming up, and everyone was wearing their armour. And then I saw Corey, the guy who was handling my wardrobe, carrying my armour, and I felt so horrible,” he recalled.

Damon said he quickly apologised – “That never happened again. That was embarrassing.”

Uggs were banned

Anne Hathaway said that the director ran a tight ship (sorry) – “no Uggs, standing on your mark at 7am.”

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Nolan has since confirmed the fluffy “signifier[s] of modernity” were banned because they took actors out of the ancient story.

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Samantha Morton started reading The Odyssey after she got cast as Circe – then had to stop researching her character

Samantha Morton said she’d never read the Ancient Greek poem before being cast in the movie.

“I didn’t know that I was going to be reading The Odyssey. I hadn’t read the book at school. I didn’t study the classics. So for me, it was just a character in a script, and my interpretation of this character was what it was,” she told Vanity Fair.

“Once I was given the role, I did a bit of a deep dive into Circe and found it quite extraordinary. I very, very quickly pulled away because I didn’t want to be burdened by that responsibility. It’s there, but forget about it because I’m there to make this movie.”

She added, “I don’t overanalyse. I don’t put my characters in psych therapy ever.”

Universal PicturesRobert Pattinson thought Matt Damon was a “complete psycho”

Robert Pattinson (Antinous) told MTV he thought his on-screen enemy, Matt Damon, was a “complete psycho” on set.

“There’s a thing which Matt did when we were shooting something and he was in the trailer next to me and he was making these noises in the trailer,” he told the publication.

“I thought he was on the phone and I’m like, ‘He’s a complete psycho’... He’s just like, screaming and screaming and screaming. And I’m like, ‘Either you’re having a really bad toilet experience or like…’”

As it turns out, the actor was trying to wear out his voice to sound older.

The actors got sprayed with sideways rain

According to Himesh Patel (Eurylochus), filming on a boat in mizzling Italy wasn’t “brutal” enough for Nolan.

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“They did also add some sideways rain,” he told BFI.

“There were some days we’re on the boat just off Favignana in Italy where it would be raining a little bit and grey, and then this other boat would just pull up alongside, and it was [special effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher]. He had a massive hose, and it was, ‘We’re going to just spray this hose all over you if that’s okay?’”

No, it was not comfortable inside that horse

So perhaps it’s no surprise Damon said, “It wasn’t comfortable in there.”

And speaking to Polygon, Jon Berthnal (Menelaus) added: “When the horse was still in the water, and the water was coming in, that water was freezing cold.

“It’s no joke. There’s no frills. There’s zero. Nothing. And I really love that. I call it ‘No acting acting.’ [Nolan] just puts you in it.”

John Leguizamo genuinely couldn’t see on set

John Leguizamo, who played blind swineherd Eumaeus in the movie, said he was forced to go method – whether he wanted to or not.

“My guy Eumaeus is sight-impaired, so they gave me contacts that were opaque, so I couldn’t actually see,” he told BFI.

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“I had to be guided to eat, go to the bathroom, whatever. I have a friend who’s legally blind, and I studied her, and that’s what I incorporated into this character to help me be as real as possible.”

Tom Holland went to see Zendaya’s first day on set “because I just wanted to be there”

Tom Holland and Zendaya (Athena) are husband and wife in real life. And on his partner’s first day on the set of The Odyssey – a part he broke to her that she’d gotten – he “went to set” on “her first day of work because I just wanted to be there”, Tom told GQ.

Zendaya has expressed how reassuring his presence was at the time.

“You know, some locations he wasn’t at, but he was on my first day, which I was very grateful for,” she shared with Extra.

“Because as you can imagine, something like this is quite a daunting task. It’s the scale, the scope, it’s absolutely extraordinary. So, walking onto a Chris Nolan set for the first time is no small feat, so I was happy to have some support.”

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