Nearly 3,000 years after Homer first penned The Odyssey, Nolan's latest epic brings the legendary tale to the big screen with an all-star cast led by Matt Damon as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca whose quest to return home after the Trojan War turns into a decade-long journey filled with gods, monsters and impossible challenges.
Joining Damon are Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, John Leguizamo and Zendaya, who takes on the role of the goddess Athena.
For the cast, the experience of making the film was as memorable as the story itself.
Asked by Joelle Garguilo what story she will never get tired of telling from her time on set, Nyong'o recalled being given an unexpected responsibility.
"One scene, I came on set, and Chris was like, 'OK, you're in charge of the extras,'" Nyong'o said. "And I was like, 'What? What?' And I scratched my head. I was like, 'Has this ever happened to me before?'"
Leguizamo found himself looking after one of the film's four-legged stars.
"I had the dog, Argus, had to take care of the Portuguese pendejo," he joked. "It is only like 75 in the world, the ancient breed. And I kept him calm. I pet him a lot. I was in charge of the dog, which was fine."
Damon said even the day-to-day work on set felt extraordinary.
"While we were shooting, the first AD came up to me, and I was watching the grips do some extraordinary thing, like build a platform off the side of a mountain," Damon said.
"There's nothing normal about that," Garguilo responded.
"No," Damon agreed.
Zendaya admitted she was nervous on her first day.
"I'll never forget that first day. The set was unlike anything I'd ever seen," she said. "I was incredibly nervous."
"You were?" Garguilo asked.
"Yeah. I mean, this is like..."
"I was too," Leguizamo added. "Yeah."
"This is a Chris Nolan movie," Zendaya said.
Leguizamo agreed, saying, "You do feel like this is extra, extra bigger than everything else, more important than everything else."
Zendaya said working alongside actors she had admired for years added to the experience.
"And then on top of that, it's with people that I've admired for so long," she said, "and being able to share a scene or space with them in this way and just wanting to soak it all in and be present."
The ambitious production is also making history. The Odyssey is the first feature film ever shot entirely with IMAX cameras.
When asked how much film was used, Nolan had a simple answer.
"We shot 2 million feet of IMAX film," he said.
"2 million feet of IMAX film?" Garguilo repeated.
"Fair amount of film," Nolan replied. "It went all over the world, and we experienced so many different conditions. It was a very hard shoot, but hard in the right way. It wasn't hard because people were fighting or politics with the studio or anything like that. It was hard because it should be hard."
"It should be hard," Garguilo said.
"Yeah," Nolan responded. "It's The Odyssey."
Damon said shooting entirely on IMAX presented unique challenges.
"Shooting in IMAX, which is really challenging, the film goes through the camera in two and a half rather than 11 minutes," he explained.
Zendaya said Nolan's process is designed to make every second of film count.
"Usually, it's like rolling and the background action. But he starts with the background and makes sure the movement and the chaos is..." she said.
"It's already happening," Leguizamo added.
"Yeah, the scene is already happening so that you don't lose any time off of film," Zendaya continued. "The film is very precious. You only have three minutes."
"And so if you're doing a big emotional scene, you've got to stop. They've got to reload," Damon said. "So there were all these technical challenges."
For Leguizamo, the scale of the project was impossible to ignore.
"Chris is taking on such a huge task," he said.
"Is this one of the biggest tasks?" Garguilo asked.
"Yes," Zendaya and Leguizamo answered simultaneously.
"It's The Odyssey," Garguilo noted.
"The most important form of literature in Western civilization," Leguizamo said, "and he's taking this challenge, and you want him to succeed. And you want to be the one that helps him get there."
"And everyone's delivering," Zendaya added.
"There's so much at stake. You can feel it," Garguilo said.
For Damon, the experience felt less like filming a movie and more like living one.
"It was more like going on an expedition than making a movie," he said. "You've got to hike up a mountain. You've got to hike up to a cave. You've got to take a boat. I mean, the whole thing was just awesome."
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