‘You Know This Is A Flashback.’ The Surreal Moment Matt Damon Had On Set When He Realized How ‘Big’ The Odyssey Was
Christopher Nolan’s movies are known for their epic scale and practical effects, and he’s done it again with The Odyssey, which is crushing at the box office. The acclaimed book-to-screen adaptation is super ambitious, and Matt Damon recalled one wild moment on set that showed just how big of a production the latest Nolan movie truly is.
The Odyssey‘s reviews have been super positive, and there’s already Awards Season buzz surrounding the massive blockbuster. Matt Damon movies aren’t known for being on indie budgets, but the level of production on Nolan’s latest shocked even him. In a video from The Today Show‘s Instagram, the 55-year-old actor spoke about shooting one particularly epic sequence. In his words:
There was a point in, where we were shooting Troy. And because Chris [Nolan] does everything in-camera, if you see a thousand people in a battle, there are a thousand people there. There’s no computer, there’s no CGI. And so when we were shooting this scene, and there’s literally 1200 people. A guy runs by me, he’s on fire.
Talk about a crazy day on set. Damon is no stranger to huge movies, but it sounds like The Odyssey was on another level… even for him. Christopher Nolan has a reputation for preferring practical effects over CGI, and that includes employing tons of extras when necessary. Case in point: The Dark Knight Rise’s epic final battle actually had hundreds of background actors rush at each other when Bane’s forces collided with Gotham’s Police Department. And the scale of The Odyssey is even bigger than that Batman movie (which is streaming with an HBO Max subscription).
In the same interview, the Martian actor went on to tell the same story, and a comment by cinematographer Hoyt van Hoytema really highlighted what a huge movie they were filming. As Damon went on:
And Hoyt [van Hoytema] is behind me with the camera, our cinematographer. He’s got the IMAX handheld over on his shoulder. And Odysseus is taking it all in and he’s following me as Odysseus is seeing all this stuff and a building’s on fire. It comes crashing down. And then we hear cut and everything stops. And Hoyt puts the camera down and he turns to me and he goes, ‘You know, this is a flashback.’ And I was like ‘Yeah, this is a big movie. If this is a flashback.’
Talk about perspective. The fact that Christopher Nolan put this much money and effort into what would ultimately just be a flashback for The Odyssey proved how huge a movie it would become. That includes plenty of epic flashbacks, a stellar ensemble cast, and (of course) that wild Trojan Horse sequence.
Fans can see The Odyssey‘s scale for themselves as the movie is in theaters now as part of the 2026 movie release list. Spoiler alert: the movie is HUGE.
