{"id":680440,"date":"2026-07-08T13:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T13:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/680440\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T13:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T13:33:09","slug":"christopher-nolan-explains-why-the-odyssey-uses-modern-english-for-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/680440\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan explains why \u2018The Odyssey\u2019 uses modern English for dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Nolan<\/a> has explained why he opted for modern English dialogue for his new epic The Odyssey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest movies of the year, the film is an adaptation of the ancient Greek epic poem by Homer, and stars Matt Damon<\/a> as a king embarking on a perilous journey home from war. When the trailer arrived for the film, audiences were surprised about the way dialogue was delivered in the film. Most of the actors have American accents, and Tom Holland\u2019s<\/a> Telemachus refers to Damon\u2019s character, Odysseus, as \u201cDad\u201d instead of \u201cFather\u201d. Traditionally, historical dramas have a more formal dialogue, but in an interview with The Los Angeles Times<\/a>, Nolan explained the deviation was intentional.<\/p>\n

He discussed wanting to find \u201clanguage that has emotional not intellectual meaning to people,\u201d opting for contemporary accents and dialogue over something elevated or theatrical. \u201cI was maybe being na\u00efve, it might bite me on the ass, but I wanted an earthy narrative,\u201d he explained. \u201cTo me it was a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the interview, he talked about why it was also a \u201cno-brainer\u201d to cast Damon in the lead, having worked with the actor on 2014\u2019s Interstellar<\/a> and 2023\u2019s Oppenheimer<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019d worked with Matt twice before and he has such a great connection to the audience, he draws them in,\u201d he 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 \u2013 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

The Odyssey is released on July 17 and has already earned rave reviews from critics<\/a>, who have described the film as \u201ca triumph\u201d and \u201ca crowning cinematic achievement\u201d. Damon\u2019s co-star in the film, Tom Holland, recently recalled how a misunderstanding led him to initially think Nolan hated his performance.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan has explained why he opted for modern English dialogue for his new epic The Odyssey. One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-680440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}