Matt Damon Reveals Ben Affleck’s Review of ‘The Odyssey’

There was also plenty of praise for Damon himself, as the cast noted how much the star had to go through physically and emotionally to play the role of Odysseus.

Patel recalled how one day when they were shooting some brutal scenes on the seas, “A bunch of the guys on the boat, they were they were starting to like flag, and Matt turned around to us and he said, ‘I know this is hard, but how many actors are in SAG? Every single one of them would die to be where you are right now.’ And we were like, ‘Well, we can’t argue with that.’ I mean, that’s completely true. Shut up, get on with it,” adding that even during the taxing moments, Damon would be “smiling, happy, just loving it.”

Holland shouted out the scene between Damon and Anne Hathaway when Odysseus has returned to Ithaca but is still in hiding, saying he wasn’t supposed to be on set that day but wanted to come see the actors in action.

“Watching you guys go the distance in that scene just really set the tone for us of the level that we should all aspire to be at for a movie like this,” Holland said. “I couldn’t do that yet. I need a few more years.”

Damon also spoke about Nolan’s specific take on Odysseus, saying, “His adaptation made it really clear what he wanted: that weariness, that regret, that shame. It’s this foundational story in Western literature, and it’s about homecoming and this idea, this kind of twist, that he wasn’t actually ready to go home was kind of shocking from an academic standpoint… when I got to that line the first time I read the script, where Annie says, ‘You were the people from the sea,’ I literally just put the script down for a second. I was very shocked.”

Elsewhere in the chat, Holland added to his previous comments that this role was his last chance to play a boy (“I can grow facial hair now!”), emphasizing “it was a really sort of cathartic experience for me because it really felt like a farewell to sort of the first chapter of my career.” Theron teased that in her part as Calypso, “like Tom, I felt like this was the last time that I would get to play a young girl.”

Many of the stars also spoke about their fear of being the one to derail Nolan’s epic, with Zendaya admitting in her role as Athena she was “incredibly nervous” because “I did not want to be the one that was going to mess up this take, especially when you’re shooting on IMAX film and you can hear the sound of it going. You’re like, ‘I want to make sure that whatever I contribute to this, I’m giving just as much as everyone here is clearly giving.’ So it gave me a lot of anxiety.” But, she continued, “It helped that Tom came to set that day [of shooting her Battle of Troy scene] and he was like in the corner, like, ‘You got this, you’re doing good!’”