{"id":537730,"date":"2026-07-07T16:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537730\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:14:08","slug":"christopher-nolan-odyssey-star-stunned-like-heath-ledger-on-dark-knight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537730\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan: Odyssey Star Stunned Like Heath Ledger on Dark Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Nolan<\/a> noted one actor in The Odyssey<\/a> performed their scene in such a stunning manner that his crew burst into applause \u2014 and it\u2019s been nearly 20 years since that\u2019s happened. <\/p>\n

Nolan singled out Samantha Morton (Minority Report, The Walking Dead), who plays the goddess Circe, despite her relatively brief screen time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a massive film and she is someone who comes in and changes the dynamic,\u201d Nolan told The L.A. Times<\/a> in a spoiler-filled interview. \u201cIn some weird way, the film lived or died over that character. She was the fulcrum. I\u2019ve always admired Samantha\u2019s work, she brings so much depth of thinking about her role, there are no limitations on her performance. After one of her takes, the crew gave her a great round of applause. I was talking with Emma [Thomas, Nolan\u2019s producing partner and wife] afterwards and she remembered that the last time that had happened was with Heath Ledger on The Dark Knight.\u201d <\/p>\n

Morton has similarly drawn praise in some of the first reactions to the film<\/a> from journalists (\u201cSamantha Morton damn well steals the show with the few scenes she\u2019s in,\u201d wrote a critic for The Independent). <\/p>\n

Nolan also explained that he wanted a stacked cast with well-known actors, noting, \u201cThese are mythological figures, iconic in some ways. I wanted to cast it big, get the finest bunch of actors.\u201d <\/p>\n

The director said he chose Matt Damon, who plays the tortured hero Odysseus, due to the actor\u2019s talent for making his characters accessible and his ability to perform plenty of intensely physical action. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d worked with Matt twice before and he has such a great connection to the audience, he draws them in,\u201d Nolan said. \u201cFor this very complex character, you need an actor who disappears into parts, who is very open to the audience. You want the audience to go with him through his mistakes \u2014 and he makes a lot of mistakes. Matt was everyman for The Martian, a kind of superhero for the Jason Bourne films, and Odysseus is part everyman, part superhero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nolan added, \u201cWe were going to really challenging locations, doing a lot of boat work, and he helped to lead that process. The rest of the cast, a cadre of guys who worked their asses off rowing, was looking to him and everyone saw what he was doing for the film. Without Matt, we would have been better off doing it on a sound stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile another actor in the film, Robert Pattinson, who plays Antinous, is making headlines<\/a> for comparing his character to Jacob from Twilight. Pattison famously played vampire Edward in the teen fantasy saga, who competed with werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) for the affection of Bella (Kristen Stewart). \u201cI keep comparing it \u2026 it\u2019s kind of like Jacob in Twilight,\u201d Pattison said on the red carpet of the film\u2019s London premiere on Monday. \u201cPenelope just can\u2019t make her mind up between the two guys and I\u2019m just trying to like help her make a decision. \u2018It\u2019s fine. [Odysseus is] dead, get over it.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus\u2019 long and fantastical trip home from the Trojan War, back to the Kingdom of Ithaca to save his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland).\u00a0The Odyssey\u00a0is the first film to be entirely shot in the Imax format and runs 2 hours and 53 minutes. <\/p>\n

The Odyssey opens in theaters July 17. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan noted one actor in The Odyssey performed their scene in such a stunning manner that his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[50678,93,61,60,270,83194],"class_list":["post-537730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-the-odyssey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}