When Christopher Nolan decided to adapt The Odyssey, he didn’t just aim big — he rewrote the rules of filmmaking. And according to Matt Damon, that ambition forced actors to completely rethink how they perform on set.
Damon, who plays Odysseus in Nolan’s epic retelling of Homer’s ancient poem, has opened up about the unexpected challenges of shooting a film entirely on IMAX cameras — something that had never been done before.
“It Sounds Like a Blender in Your Face”
Speaking on the New Heights podcast, Damon revealed that The Odyssey was shot 100 percent on IMAX film, making it the first movie in history to do so.
That innovation, however, came with a serious downside.
IMAX cameras, Damon explained, are notoriously loud. So loud, in fact, that traditional dialogue scenes were almost impossible.
“It sounds like a blender, like a Cuisinart in your face when the camera’s close to you,” Damon said.
“There’s never really been dialogue scenes in IMAX before — you just wouldn’t be able to hear the actors.”
How Nolan Solved the Problem
Rather than compromise, Christopher Nolan doubled down on his vision.
To make dialogue scenes workable, Nolan and his technical team engineered a custom solution: a massive enclosure built around the IMAX camera, paired with an intricate mirror system that allowed actors to maintain natural eyelines while keeping the camera close.
The setup let actors speak normally — without shouting over the mechanical roar — while preserving the immersive IMAX frame Nolan insisted on.
“The amount of work that went into figuring that out,” Damon said,
“because he wanted to do 100 percent IMAX — and he did it.”
IMAX Didn’t Think It Was Possible Either
Even IMAX wasn’t convinced at first.
IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond previously shared that Nolan approached him nearly a year before filming with a bold challenge: make it possible, or the film wouldn’t happen the way he envisioned.
“There were lots of issues,” Gelfond admitted.
“But he said, ‘If you can solve them, I’ll shoot the whole movie on IMAX film.’ And we did.”
The result: the first feature film ever shot entirely with IMAX film cameras.
A Mythic Story, Told on an Unprecedented Scale
Based on Homer’s 8th-century BC epic, The Odyssey follows Odysseus across a decade-long journey home after the Trojan War, filled with gods, monsters, temptation, and survival. Nolan’s version leans heavily into practical filmmaking, real locations, and large-format spectacle — matching the myth’s grand scale.
The film boasts a massive ensemble cast, including Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, and many more.
Final Words
For Matt Damon, The Odyssey wasn’t just another transformation-heavy role — it was a crash course in performing for an entirely new cinematic language. And for Nolan, it’s yet another reminder that when technology says “can’t,” he hears “not yet.”
When The Odyssey premieres in IMAX on July 17, 2026, it won’t just be telling one of humanity’s oldest stories — it’ll be doing so in a way cinema has never seen before.
