By the power of Zeus, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has made over $300 million at the global box office. It really shouldn’t be a surprise; even Nolan’s “bad” films are pretty damn good. When he steps into his bag, he’s making timeless cinema. Following up Oppenheimer would be a tall task for anyone, but bringing Homer’s 2,700-year-old poem The Odyssey to modern audiences is quite the Herculean task. (No pun intended, Zeus, I swear.) That said, Nolan more than stuck the landing; The Odyssey will be feeding IMAX for the foreseeable future, with this depiction possibly being the one your children’s grandchildren will be watching in English class.
Between conversations about casting Travis Scott and Lupita Nyong’o in the film and debates on whether Nolan’s penchant for IMAX is “elitist,” there has been a conversation on just how Nolan made The Odyssey. Not “how did he shoot it all on IMAX,” but “how the hell did he recreate the giant cyclops Polyphemus?” Were you in some of those Google searches, too? Well, don’t fret; we’re going to explain it to you.
Whether you’ve seen the film and wanted more insight on what you watched or are looking for more education on these monsters before checking out The Odyssey, here’s a guide to the monsters in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. And if you haven’t seen The Odyssey yet, if you can, see it on 70 mm IMAX (as Nolan intended); if not, because it was shot 100 percent on 70 mm IMAX, any format you see it in will look gorgeous. (The larger the screen, the better!)
Polyphemus
Many a moviegoer has left The Odyssey weeping for Polyphemus, and for good reason. While on the hunt for food and supplies, Odysseus and his men happen upon an island, spotting a herd of sheep and following them into a cave, not realizing that this cave belonged to the cyclops Polyphemus, who, before Odysseus and his squad can escape, shoves a rock in front of the entrance, going about his merry way. Occasionally, the cyclops will stroll out of another part of the cave, picking up a soldier to snack on from time to time. Seeing as they can’t stay cooped up in that cave all day, a plan is devised to escape that involves blinding Polyphemus and tying hay to their bodies to appear like sheep when he opens the cave to let them graze.
Recreating Polyphemus was a two-pronged act. On the one hand, a 60-foot-tall puppet was constructed inside the cave for some of the shots; for the closer shots, with Polyphemus screaming and eating and such, actor Bill Irwin was in make-up and costuming, shot on a set with miniatures. Astonishing work.
The Laestrygonians
Now if that wasn’t gnarly enough, Odysseus’s next trip is to Aeaea, where the Laestrygonians reside. Simply put, the Laestrygonians, said to be the offspring of Poseidon’s son Laestrygon, are a race of cannibalistic giants. Things seem cool from the jump; Odysseus and his crew are just walking along Aeaea before encountering these massive individuals, which was shot in a unique way. Matt Damon told Happy Sad Confused that “there were these stuntmen who were all seven feet. Then they got stuntmen who were under five feet.” Nolan literally got giants to tower over these soldiers, a gem of practical movie magic that makes these Laestrygonians even more menacing looking on-screen.
Circe the Sorceress
In Homer's poem, Circe is the island goddess who turns Odysseus's men into pigs and holds the hero on her island for a year before becoming his guide to the underworld. She sits at the intersection of seduction and menace, a figure who is neither straightforwardly villainous nor safe. Nolan cast Samantha Morton in the role, who played Alpha, the ruthless Whisperer leader, in multiple seasons of The Walking Dead.
In Nolan’s film, Circe the witch more or less does the same, although “it’s proper movie magic,” Morton explained. “It’s all in camera; what you see is real.” It’s insane to see, considering that the men still turn into pigs, although Circe would beg to differ. “I didn't turn your men into anything!” Circe tells Odysseus in Nolan’s The Odyssey. “Look at them! This is who they are! … They've raped and pillaged across the world for you. And you think that's against their nature?”
The Sirens
The Sirens in Homer's poem are creatures whose voices are the danger: sailors who hear their song are drawn irresistibly toward the sound, leading them to shipwreck on the rocks surrounding the island. Odysseus survives the encounter only by having his crew plug their ears with beeswax while he himself is tied to the mast, close enough to hear the song but unable to act on it—at his request. Nolan doesn’t remix this situation too much; a soldier chooses to remove the wax and dives into the ocean, while Odysseus endures the song in its entirety. (Shouts to Ludwig Göransson for the score and for the sound design in this sequence in particular.)
Scylla and Charybdis
The stretch of water between Scylla and Charybdis is the ultimate no-win passage; a six-headed monster on one cliff face and a ship-swallowing whirlpool on the other, with Odysseus forced to choose which threat to absorb. Losing a few men to Scylla's jaws is the calculated trade-off for not losing the entire vessel to Charybdis. It is one of the Odýsseia's most enduring images, which is likely why a Substack piece analyzing Nolan's film took its title directly from the episode, calling it "The rock and the hard place."
As with much of The Odyssey, Nolan went practical with both depictions. "We took the boat through that passageway,” Damon recently explained when discussing the Charybdis. "Chris had, on one side, jet skis doing donuts in the water to really create a small whirlpool that the visual effects could use [as] the actual movement of water as a guide." For the Scylla, Nolan even found a way to get the soldiers ripped from the ship. "He rigged a ratchet system and pulled stunt guys out, off the deck of the boat," Damon further explains. "It was the most incredible thing. He did six ratchets, and he did it after lunch. He did it all in an afternoon."
Calypso the Nymph
Calypso is the immortal nymph who keeps Odysseus stranded on her island, Ogygia, for years, a captivity wrapped in comfort and desire (thanks to those damn Lotus flowers). She is not a monster in the conventional sense, but the power she holds over Odysseus is just as deadly, considering that he’s gone for so long, forgetting that his plan was to return to Penelope.
In The Odyssey, Charlize Theron plays the role of Calypso. That’s about it; she’s Charlize Theron, all you need is the Lotus flower.
