Christopher Nolan Refused To Fake ‘The Odyssey,’ So He Chased Real Myths Across Six Countries Instead and the Filming Locations Look Insanely Good
Epic filmmaking has always come with a temptation to fake it, building sprawling sets on soundstages or leaning on digital backdrops to conjure ancient worlds. Christopher Nolan has built an entire career resisting that temptation, favoring practical effects and real locations wherever humanly possible.
For his new adaptation of Homer’s ‘The Odyssey,’ that philosophy pushed the production further than almost any of his previous films. The shoot stretched across Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland, and the United States over ninety one days, using a new seventy millimeter IMAX camera system to bring the ancient story to the screen.
A recent post from film account Lets Cinema mapped out just how far Nolan and his crew traveled to avoid a green screen, and the research backs it up completely. The kingdom of Ithaca and the wider journey were filmed across six countries from February to August, with a cast including Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Robert Pattinson. Troy itself came to life not on a backlot but in Morocco.
Nolan built his version of Troy in Aït Benhaddou, a fortified mudbrick village and UNESCO World Heritage Site that has stood in for ancient cities in everything from ‘Gladiator’ to ‘Game of Thrones,’ with additional filming around Essaouira and Marrakesh. The choice made sense given the location’s decades long resume as cinema’s go to stand in for the ancient world.
Greece carried its own mythic weight, since it is the very destination Odysseus spends the whole story trying to reach. Filming took place across Messinia in the Peloponnese, where Voidokilia Beach and its horseshoe shaped cove sat alongside the nearby Nestor’s Cave, reportedly used for the film’s Cyclops sequence with Polyphemus. The Methoni Castle and the ancient fortress site of Acrocorinth also made appearances.
Sicily did some of the heaviest lifting for Ithaca itself. The island of Favignana, nicknamed Goat Island and believed by scholars to be where Odysseus landed to barbecue goats and restock supplies, anchored the Sicilian shoot, alongside the Aeolian Islands. The Castello di Santa Caterina, perched above Favignana, plays the part of Ithaca’s palace.
Scotland rounded out the European leg in an unexpected way. Odysseus’ encounter with the Laestrygonians was filmed in the pine woodland of Culbin Forest along the Moray Firth coast, a location Nolan had only used once before for a prologue sequence in ‘The Dark Knight Rises.’ Actor John Leguizamo, who joined the sprawling ensemble, described the scale of the shoot in blunt terms while promoting unrelated work, saying the production spanned Morocco, Greece, Sicily, and Los Angeles and calling the experience of working with Nolan comparable to working with Stanley Kubrick, a comment he made while speaking to PEOPLE.
Between the mudbrick walls of Aït Benhaddou, the mythic shores of the Peloponnese, and a fifteenth century fortress the crew hiked up to daily, ‘The Odyssey’ looks like the rare blockbuster that earned its scope the hard way. Which of these six countries would you most want to visit because of the film?
