The Odyssey: 8 incredible behind-the-scenes facts from Christopher Nolan's Greek myth masterpiece

This past weekend was a big one for Christopher Nolan, the visionary director whose films have captivated audiences for more than two decades. His latest work, The Odyssey, brings the classic Greek epic from Homer to life for modern audience, and the results are nothing short of incredible. Viewers are clearly responding: the film had the highest-grossing opening weekend globally of any of Nolan's films, even beating his two iconic Batman sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.

Considering what a gargantuan production The Odyssey was, it's amazing to see such an immediate payoff. While Nolan has never been a slouch when it comes to the way he makes his films, he's truly outdone himself with this one. Thanks to the success of Oppenheimer, he was able to secure a $250 million budget to film a tale of Greek myth, which is rarely ever done on this sort of scale in Hollywood. Nolan took that and ran with it, filming in countries around the world, on the ocean, and with technologies that pushed the limits of his crew and cast.

Here are eight behind-the-scenes stories from the making of The Odyssey that reveal how the film's production was every bit as epic as Odysseus' journey itself.

1. The IMAX cameras

We can't talk about how incredible the making of The Odyssey was without starting with the foundation of it all: the cameras. The Odyssey is the first ever movie to be filmed entirely with IMAX cameras. That made practical demands on the production that were so immense that very few other filmmakers would have ever dared tackle them.

As you can see in the making-of featurette above, the IMAX cameras used for The Odyssey are large and they are noisy. In fact, they're so loud that filming quiet, dramatic scenes with them was previously impossible, both because of how distracting it was for the actors and because of how it ruined any natural sound in the take. That's why Nolan and his wife/producing partner Emma Thomas approached IMAX for a unique solution.

"We had gone to IMAX and sort of challenged them to create new cameras that were quiet, or at the very least, create a blimp that would baffle the noise of the camera," Thomas explained. "They came back to us with new cameras, plus a blimp."

The blimps that housed the IMAX cameras for The Odyssey are incredibly unwieldy, weighing around 300 lbs and requiring multiple people to even move them into position.

Another aspect that makes the filming itself so unique is that these IMAX cameras can only run for three minutes at a time before they fill up their film cartridge. This created unique challenges, as production had to frequently pause to reload the cameras, even in the midst of incredibly dramatic scenes. This technology is so rarely used that Tom Holland (Telemechus) initially thought Nolan disliked his performance because of how frequently the director was calling cut, only to realize it was because of the physical limitations of the cameras.

For Nolan, the challenges were well worth it. "For me, it's been my long-held dream I've been nursing since I was about 16 years old, to do a film entirely on IMAX. The thing that was always stopping us was the sound," Nolan explained. "And so for the first time ever, we've been able to do the entire film on the incredible IMAX film format. It's a long-held dream finally coming to fruition."

2. Odysseus' ship was a real, sea-worthy Viking ship manned by actual sailors

Much of The Odyssey revolves around the years-long sea voyage that Odysseus and his men go on in hopes of returning home to Ithaca. It was a crucial element for Nolan's film to get right, so it's no surprise that the director and his team actually enlisted a real, sea-worthy ship, put Matt Damon (Odysseus) and a bunch of other actors on it, and then put them out on the water to film these scenes.

The ship the production used for Odysseus' vessel is a real Viking longship called the Draken Harald Hårfagre from Norway, which is an active vessel that makes trips around the world's oceans, including the passage across the North Atlantic to North America.

“Draken Harald Hårfagre was built as an experimental archaeology project to better understand how large Viking ships actually performed at sea,” Emanuel Persson, CEO and Expedition Leader of Draken Harald Hårfagre told Outside. “Many days were spent working in genuine open-water conditions where weather, wind and sea state were simply part of the day. As a fully operational ocean-going Viking ship, Draken is designed for exactly those environments, so the production was able to film on a real vessel under real conditions."

Persson added that filming The Odyssey "often felt much like any other expedition" for his crew of sailors. In the movie, there's a mix of Hollywood actors and real sailors working the ship in many shots, and all of the actors responsible for manning the oars went to rowing camp to prepare.

“There is something on board that cannot easily be faked: the weight of the oak, the sound of the rigging, the movement of the sail, the crew working together in real wind and water,” Persson told Artnet (via The Smithsonian). “When you put a real ship in real conditions, it brings a different kind of truth to the image.”

3. The dolphins in The Odyssey were filmed spontaneously on the ocean

Early in Odysseus sea voyage, there's a brief shot where he's gazing off into the ocean from the deck of his ship, and a dolphin breaks the water to jump alongside it. It'd be a reasonable assumption to think that dolphin was CGI, but in fact it was a real dolphin. Even better, the scene was totally unplanned; Matt Damon and the crew saw the dolphins while filming one of his close-ups, and managed to get the marine mammal's antics on camera. It's a spontaneous shot that adds a real, living quality to the film.

4. The Cyclops was largely done with practical effects

Odysseus encounters many horrors and wonders on his way back to Ithaca, but the first and one of the most striking is the Cyclops. Found inside a cave on a remote island, this monstrous creature traps Odysseus and his men when they try to steal some of its sheep. It then begins eating them, while they try to escape over the course of several days. It's the first time that The Odyssey feels like a horror movie, and a chilling preview of even greater threats to come.

While most other productions probably would have just phoned in a CGI creature for the Cyclops, The Odyssey brought this one-eyed monster, named Polyphemus, to life practically. As Nolan revealed to Empire, he had a 60-foot tall animatronic version of the Cyclops made as a reference, both for the visual effects department and to give the actors a sense of scale, making it feel as real as possible for their performances. Then the Cyclops was voiced and acted by Bill Irwin, who brought the robot TARS to life in Interstellar, and layered into the film.

The result speaks for itself. Polyphemus is a new classic movie monster that is going to be studied in film classes for years to come.

5. The Laestrygonians were created using forced perspective shots

Another horrific encounter that Odysseus and his men have on their journey is with the Laestrygonians, a race of giant, man-eating warriors whose strength is far greater than anything they've yet encountered. These tall beings are armored head-to-toe, and cut through Odysseus' men with ease.

As with the Cyclops, the Laestrygonians were created with practical effects. In this case, Nolan and his team utilized forced perspective camera work to make the Laestrygonians appear much larger in the frame than Odysseus and his soldiers. That's the same sort of technique The Lord of the Rings famously used for its Hobbits and Dwarves.

“It was a fun sequence to shoot,” Nolan told Empire (via Cosmic Book News). “It’s really a thing of trying to get across the brutality. They’re warriors, and their weapons and armour is of a level of sophistication that Odysseus has never seen.”

6. Circe's transformations stunned the crew on set

Rounding out our trio of the movie's most horrific scenes is the encounter with Circe, the witch played by The Walking Dead alumni Samantha Morton. As with the Cyclops and the Laestrygonians, much of the terrifying effects of Odysseus' men transforming into pigs were achieved practically using a combination of puppets and prosthetics. While that's impressive enough on its own, the thing that really sealed that scene was Morton's unnerving performance while Circe molded the men into beasts with her hands, like a potter shaping clay.

Morton's performance was so transportive on set that Nolan's crew actually stopped what they were doing and applauded Morton after one of her takes — something which Nolan revealed in an interview has not happened on one of his films since Heath Ledger played the Joker in The Dark Knight.

7. Matt Damon's unforgettable experience at the Gates of Troy

One of the most stunning sequences in The Odyssey is the sack of Troy, when Odysseus' plan to sneak men into the city using the Trojan Horse allows his army to finally open the gate of the city, allowing Agamemnon's army to pour through the breach and destroy everything in sight after 10 years of failed attempts. This is a key piece of the narrative for Odysseus as a character, but it's also just jaw-dropping to watch. When the gates of Troy first open, we see Agememnon (Benny Safdie) in his imposing armor and several soldiers around him. But then comes the full army, streaming past while Odysseus and his fellow soldiers look on in awe.

As it turns out, those emotions weren't faked whatsoever. Damon revealed to Entertainment Weekly that on the day they filmed that scene, he had no idea how many people were going to come through the gates. It made for an experience that will stay with the actor forever.

“We didn’t know that Agamemnon and an army of 750 people were on the other side. We just thought we were taking it to the opening of the door,” Damon recalled. “And we opened the door...I will never forget seeing Benny in that costume standing in the middle. And it looked like it was Benny and 20 guys because it was dark behind them. And then this roar and 500 people came running. It was something.”

8. A filmmaking journey around the world

Just as The Odyssey tells an epic voyage of a man traveling across the sea to return home, the production itself went on its own journey of equally epic proportion. Much of the movie was filmed on location in a number of different settings across six different countries: Greece, Morocco, Italy, Iceland, Scotland, and the United States. It's also been reported that filming took place in Western Sahara.

This was necessary to capture the vastness of Odysseus' journey. It also created incredible filmmaking challenges as the crew had to get their heavy IMAX cameras to far-flung locations, at times transforming those remote areas into makeshift soundstages.

"I mean, every location we went to, I would get there and I would just start laughing going like, 'Who thought you should shoot a movie here?'" joked Matt Damon in a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Ultimately, this commitment to using gorgeous real-world locations paid off in spades. The Odyssey looks utterly breathtaking, and its viewers go on the journey every bit as much as Odysseus — and the production.

The Odyssey is playing now in theaters and IMAX.

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