{"id":549183,"date":"2026-07-19T15:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T15:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/549183\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T15:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T15:31:10","slug":"samantha-morton-says-landing-the-odyssey-role-felt-like-a-rebirth-of-her-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/549183\/","title":{"rendered":"Samantha Morton says landing \u2018The Odyssey\u2019 role \u201cfelt like a rebirth\u201d of her career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samantha Morton has said landing a role in Christopher Nolan<\/a>\u2018s The Odyssey<\/a> felt like a \u201crebirth\u201d of her career, and a chance to be in front of a new audience.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0\u2018The Odyssey\u2019 review: cinema may have peaked with Christopher Nolan\u2019s blockbuster epic<\/a><\/p>\n

The director\u2019s adaptation of Homer\u2019s ancient Greek poem hit cinemas on Friday (July 17), quickly becoming his best-reviewed film. It stars Matt Damon<\/a>\u00a0as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, who embarks on a treacherous journey home after the Trojan War.<\/p>\n

Also on board are\u00a0Tom Holland<\/a>\u00a0as his son Telemachus and\u00a0Anne Hathaway<\/a>\u00a0as his wife Penelope, alongside\u00a0Zendaya<\/a>,\u00a0Robert Pattinson<\/a>,\u00a0Lupita Nyong\u2019o<\/a>,\u00a0Charlize Theron<\/a>, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, Mia Goth and Morton, who plays Circe.<\/p>\n

Talking to Variety <\/a>about the role, Morton said she cried when she got the call.\u00a0\u201cThen we had a get to know you chat, and I read the script. But I didn\u2019t know if it would go any further. So when [Nolan] called and said, \u2018Would you like to do it?\u2019 I was blown away. He could have anybody on the planet, and he chose me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morton also touched on ageism, an issue particularly glaring for women in the industry, and said being a part of the blockbuster epic felt like a rare opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you get older as an actress, roles like this are just few and far between,\u201d said Morton, who has been acting since she was 12, earning Oscar nominations for Sweet and Lowdown and In America.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still work all the time, but predominantly in independent films or on television,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cIt felt like a rebirth. I got to do what I do best for the best. To get the role felt like a second chance to be seen by the wider world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nolan recently heaped praise on Morton\u2019s performance<\/a>, saying it earned her an on-set ovation that he hadn\u2019t seen since\u00a0Heath Ledger<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0The Dark Knight<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cThis was a massive film and she is someone who comes in and changes the dynamic,\u201d Nolan explained.<\/p>\n

\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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 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

In a five-star review of\u00a0the film<\/a>,\u00a0NME\u00a0described The Odyssey \u201ca big story made impossibly huge\u201d, adding that it \u201cmight just be the director\u2019s most accomplished film to date\u201d.<\/p>\n

Given it\u2019s sheer scale, Nolan recently came out and said it\u2019ll be \u201cat least\u201d three years until his next film after he \u201chit the limits of [his] own stamina\u201d while shooting<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samantha Morton has said landing a role in Christopher Nolan\u2018s The Odyssey felt like a \u201crebirth\u201d of her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-549183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}