Christopher Nolan credited Guillermo del Toro for changing how he thought about filming monsters, revealing that the Oscar-winning Mexican director’s approach “inspired” the mythological creatures featured in The Odyssey.
The film adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic follows Odysseus’s long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War as he battles monsters, gods and mythical foes while his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) fends off suitors and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) searches for him.
Matt Damon plays the hero Odysseus and the ensemble cast includes Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous, Zendaya as Athena, Samantha Morton as Circe, Charlize Theron as Calypso, Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Elliot Page, Bill Irwin and Mia Goth also feature.
In a new interview about the making of The Odyssey, Nolan discussed how he brought the mythical creatures to life and the lesson he took from del Toro’s filmmaking.
“I was very inspired by Guillermo del Toro,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “What I learned from him is that a monster is not a monster. You have to approach them the way you approach any other character.”
The Oppenheimer director said he used this insight while trying to figure out how to portray Scylla, a six-headed sea monster Odysseus and his crew would encounter on their way home after the Trojan War, which was largely done through visual effects.
Last year, shortly before the release of his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, del Toro talked about how he didn’t think of the film as a horror movie at all. “It is an emotional story for me. It’s as personal as anything. I’m asking a question about being a father, being a son,” he said at the Cannes festival. “I’m not doing a horror movie – ever. I’m not trying to do that.”
Nolan contrasted that process with his creation of Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops who imprisons Odysseus and his men in a cave, played by Bill Irwin.
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He said that the character’s design began with the Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s work Saturn Devouring His Son, which was displayed throughout the development process as a visual reference for the production team. “That was very much the inspiration,” Nolan said. “We had it up on the wall. Whenever we brought in a new technology that was the first thing we showed them.”
To realise Polyphemus on screen, Nolan said the production combined several practical techniques with Irwin’s performance rather than relying on a single effects method. “Puppetry, animatronics, robotics, but Bill was on the movie for a month,” he said. “In addition to being a great actor, he’s a mime, a clown, he knows how to use his physicality. He was the essence of it.”
The Odyssey is the first feature film to be shot entirely on IMAX film cameras, made possible after the director worked with IMAX to develop lighter, quieter equipment capable of handling dialogue-heavy scenes.
The Odyssey was screened for the UK press on Monday night and early reactions by critics described it as “staggering”, “breathtaking”, and “a filmmaking feast”.
The Independent’s chief film and TV correspondent Jacob Stolworthy described it as “Nolan’s biggest film to date”.
“This film has about triple the number of huge set pieces than any of Nolan’s previous films, and every single one of them is breathtaking in their own way,” he said. “In The Odyssey, Nolan showcases visual trickery in a way you’ve never seen before.”
He praised Holland’s performance as “his best role to date” and praised Morton who “steals the show with the few scenes she’s in”.
The Odyssey will be released in theatres on 17 July 2026.
