Tom Holland Thought Christopher Nolan Hated His Performance on THE ODYSSEY: “I Thought I Was Totally Sh*tting The Bed”
Working with Christopher Nolan is probably intimidating enough on its own, but throw in a brand-new filmmaking process and it’s easy to see why Tom Holland walked away from his first day on The Odyssey convinced things were going terribly.
Holland, who plays Telemachus in Nolan’s ambitious adaptation of The Odyssey, recently opened up about the experience while speaking with Fandango, revealing that he completely misunderstood why Nolan kept stopping the cameras during a scene with Jon Bernthal.
It turns out the constant interruptions had nothing to do with his performance. “Working with the Imax cameras for the first time is an experience,” Holland explained. “It is unlike anything I have ever seen before, and I didn’t know that it only ran for three minutes.
“So, I remember you would continue cutting, and I was with Jon [Bernthal] like, ‘Why does he keep cutting? Why does he keep doing that?'”
“And in my head, I was like, ‘Does he not like what we’re doing? What is happening?’ And then, I remember it was actually [stunt coordinator] George Cottle that was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, there’s only three minutes in the mag.’ I was like, ‘Oh, thank god.’ I thought I was totally sh*tting the bed in this scene.”
The frequent cuts had nothing to do with Nolan being unhappy. They were simply a result of the production's use of IMAX cameras.
The Odyssey is the first feature film ever shot entirely with IMAX cameras, pushing the format further than Nolan ever has before. The filmmaker has been one of IMAX's biggest champions for years, incorporating the cameras into films including The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet, and Oppenheimer. This latest project marks the first time he's gone all in with the format from beginning to end.
Speaking about reaching that milestone, Nolan said: “One of the great satisfactions of my career has been being part of an evolutionary process of a [filmmaking] system. My excitement for having finished the film entirely in Imax is: what other filmmakers might want to do that. I just want to go see somebody else’s film when they do it this way.”
Based on one of the oldest surviving works of literature, The Odyssey follows Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, as he fights his way through mythical creatures, impossible challenges, and the wrath of the gods during his decade-long journey home after the Trojan War.
Waiting for him are his wife Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway, and his son Telemachus, portrayed by Holland.
The massive ensemble cast also includes Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, Bill Irwin, Samantha Morton, Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee, Rafi Gavron, Shiloh Fernandez, Mia Goth, and more.
Considering the scale of the production and the fact that Nolan was breaking new technical ground with the cameras, Holland’s confusion is completely understandable.
The Odyssey sails into theaters on July 17.