Tom Holland felt the making of Christopher Nolan’s epic The Odyssey was “nostalgic and futuristic at the same time”.
Tom Holland says production on The Odyssey felt “nostalgic and futuristic at the same time”.
The 30-year-old actor stars as Telemachus in Christopher Nolan’s epic new blockbuster – based on Homer’s ancient Greek literature of the same name – and pointed out the parallels of shooting the first movie to be filmed entirely on IMAX 70 mm cameras in a historic setting.
Holland told Collider: “It did feel like we went back in a time machine, but a time machine that was both taking us to the future and to the past, which is so Chris Nolan, if you think about it, because the movie felt super nostalgic.
“It felt like we were making movies how they used to be made, but then also we were breaking barriers and breaking records with shooting an entire movie on IMAX and building this incredibly unique piece of kit to dampen out the cameras.
“So, it was this kind of weird experience of being nostalgic and futuristic at the same time.”
Meanwhile, Holland reflected on how Nolan would use “British humour” to remove any tension on set – with the director intervening as he and co-star Matt Damon discussed how to play a particularly important scene.
The Spider-Man star said: “I love how he can undercut the tension with almost super British humour.
“I had this one scene with Matt, which is arguably one of my most important scenes in the film. I don’t want to talk about it too much because it’s a big spoiler, but Matt and I were discussing the scene a lot, and he basically stuck his head in and went, ‘Oi, thespians, get on with it! I’m gonna be on the dog.’
“And I just remember being like, ‘Oh my God’. He just totally was like, ‘Stop thinking about it. Just do it’, and it completely alleviated any sense of stress that I had about the importance of the scene, because he had just made light of the situation.”
Holland added: “I think what lots of directors would do is send the crew away and give you your time, and we could discuss it for an hour. You actually make yourself feel more pressure because you’re making people wait, whereas he’s like, ‘Forget about the pressure, bro. You’ll be fine. Just do it.'”
The Uncharted star explained that he had never read The Odyssey until he was cast in Nolan’s movie and was shocked to discover the ancient Greek epic’s relevance in the modern world.
He told Deadline at the film’s world premiere in London on Monday (06.07.26): “I do think it’s very relevant. The idea of Zeus’s Law is something we can all do a better job of. Treating others as you’d be treated. This is a very strong theme throughout this film and it’s something we exercised on set and we made a better film for it.”
Why did Tom Holland find filming The Odyssey ‘nostalgic and futuristic’?
