Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters and has received high critic and audience scores worldwide. Recently, Matt Damon shared a behind-the-scenes story from the film.
Damon revealed that the cast was kept in the dark about the scale of one of the movie’s biggest battle scenes. While filming at the gates of Troy, he thought only Benny Safdie and a few soldiers were waiting outside. As soon as the gates opened, hundreds of extras portraying Agamemnon’s army charged toward them.
According to Damon, the battle scene is one of the most memorable experiences of his career. It featured around 750 extras, and Nolan used large practical sets and real performers instead of relying heavily on CGI.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Damon said, “We didn’t know that Agamemnon and an army of 750 people were on the other side. And we opened the door… It is a moment I will never forget. It looked like it was Benny Safdie and 20 guys because it was dark behind them… And then this roar… And just 500 people came running.”
Damon also shared a funny behind-the-scenes story about filming the iconic Trojan Horse sequence in The Odyssey. Before shooting the scene, he asked Christopher Nolan how he planned to film the inside of the Trojan Horse.
Nolan simply replied, “No idea. We’re just gonna get in there and figure it out.”
The Odyssey features one of the largest practical battle scenes ever filmed for a mythological epic.
The film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, the legendary King of Ithaca, alongside Tom Holland as his son Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, Samantha Morton as Circe, John Leguizamo as Eumaeus, Zendaya as Athena, Charlize Theron as Calypso, Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, Himesh Patel as Eurylochus, Bill Irwin as the on-set performer for Polyphemus, Elliot Page as Sinon, and Benny Safdie as Agamemnon.
Produced by Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan for their company, Syncopy. The executive producer is Thomas Hayslip.
The Odyssey is now playing in theaters. The film opened to an estimated $124.5 million domestically this weekend from 3,919 theaters.
Source: EW
