Tom Holland revealed that he left his first day filming The Odyssey convinced the director was unhappy with him, only to realise the repeated cuts were due to the use of IMAX cameras.
In a new interview, Holland talked about working on Christopher Nolan’s retelling of Homer’s Greek epic and described his first day on the set as “one of the most daunting experiences of my career”.
The forthcoming film follows Odysseus’s decade-long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War as he fights monsters, gods, and other mythical adversaries while his wife Penelope fends off suitors and his son Telemachus searches for his father.
Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Holland as Telemachus. The ensemble cast also includes Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous, Zendaya as Athena, Charlize Theron as Circe, Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, as well as Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Mia Goth, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, Samantha Morton, and Bill Irwin.
“My first day for me was probably one of the most daunting experiences of my career, just being a part of a movie of this scale and working with yourself and with, you know, amazing co-stars,” Holland told Fandango.
“And that scene that we started with is one of the most important scenes in my character arc. And it’s a very emotional scene.”
Holland added that it was also the first day on set for his “good friend” Bernthal, who plays Menelaus, the Greek king of Sparta.
“There was a lot of uncharted waters for us. I remember it was really challenging. It was a big scene. We finished the day, [Nolan] gave me a hug and a pat on the back,” he said. “And when I left that day, it wasn’t until I left the set that I was like, ‘Oh, I can totally do this. Like, I can swim in these waters.’”
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However, the Spider-Man star was almost caught off guard working with IMAX cameras, which he said he had never used before. “Working with the IMAX camera for the first time is an experience. It is unlike anything I have ever seen before,” Holland said. “And I didn’t know that it only ran for three minutes. So I remember [Nolan] would continue cutting.”
Holland remembered turning to Bernthal in confusion as filming repeatedly stopped. “I was with Jon, I’m like, “Why does he keep cutting? Why does he keep doing that?’ And I’m in my head, I’m like, ‘Does he not like what we’re doing? Like, what is happening?’”
Finally, stunt coordinator George Cottle came to Holland’s rescue and explained that there were “only three minutes in the mag”.
“I was like, ‘Oh, thank God.’ I thought I was totally s******* the bed in this scene,” Holland said.
Nolan has been one of IMAX’s most prominent advocates for more than a decade, using the large-format cameras on films including The Dark Knight, Inception, Interstellar, and Oppenheimer. 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.
Holland shared recently that he asked Sony bosses to delay filming Spider-Man 4: Brand New Day so he could join The Odyssey and the delay “saved” the film, since director Destin Daniel Cretton became available to “develop the script” and make it “the best version of any Spider-Man movie going”.
“So while it was a tough pill to swallow for Sony, I think in hindsight, they’re very grateful that it happened,” he added.
The Odyssey will be released in theatres on 17 July 2026.
