Christopher Nolan jokes about offering the lead role in The Odyssey to other actors, who all passed on the opportunity before taking it to Matt Damon. With The Odyssey release date looming on the horizon, the cast and the filmmaker of the movie are in full gear to promote the adaptation of Homer’s epic. The ambitious move to show Odysseus’ journey home at a scale unimaginable is something everyone is waiting to see how it turns out.

Regardless, the entire team of the film is doing their best to promote the film, and in the process, we got a really funny moment from the helmsman of the movie himself.

While in an interview with Fandango, Christopher Nolan, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Holland talked about The Odyssey and their experience working on the project with the legendary Christopher Nolan. They all shared their experiences and their characters, and how they brought them to life. And while talking about his role and how he got it, it triggered a funny response from the director.

The interviewer asked Damon about how he had said that the role of Odysseus came to him at the right time in his career and urged him to elaborate on that. Damon replied by saying that the scale and the vision of the movie required someone way more mature than he was ever in his early career. 

He counted himself to be lucky to have landed the part, noting that Nolan generally hires from a pool of actors with whom he has worked and who are in his stable, like Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, etc. But while he was naming all these actors, the director jumped in and quipped, “But they all passed” on the role, insinuating Damon was the last choice. This accounted for a really hilarious moment in the interview that was otherwise really getting serious.

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While this remains one of the highlights of the interview, there was another when a cast member, who was not present there, got some precious appreciation from Nolan himself.

Asking about Zendaya’s role as Athena and how she is the conscience of the film, the interviewer really wanted to know which scenes featuring the actress came out to be absolutely amazing in the movie. Responding to that, Christopher Nolan said, everything featuring Zendaya in the movie was perfect; in short, she was perfect.

The compliment to Zendaya obviChristopher ously made Tom Holland, her beau, blush, and he even owned up to that. He said that a compliment to her kind of makes him feel happy and proud. This was the heart-melting moment of the interview. The Odyssey comes to theaters on July 17, and the best possible way to watch the movie is in IMAX, as emphasized in the interview as well.

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What do you think of Christopher Nolan’s joke about the role of Odysseus? Do you think it can be true? Share your thoughts.