Matt Damon, Zendaya, and Tom Holland in ‘The Odyssey’Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures (2); Universal Pictures
Damon and Zendaya in ‘The Odyssey’Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Studios
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Matt Damon, Zendaya, and Tom Holland in ‘The Odyssey’Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures (2); Universal Pictures
Matt Damon, Zendaya, and Tom Holland in ‘The Odyssey’
Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures (2); Universal Pictures
The Oscar-nominated actor is the lead of the director’s upcoming epic, his third collaboration with Nolan, but he says that he and costar Tom Holland were constantly jealous of the level of praise Nolan dispensed to Zendaya on the Odyssey set.
“Chris is known for being very circumspect. So when you do a take, it’s not like he says, ‘That was great.’ He’ll go, ‘Yep, good. Okay.’ And that is the equivalent of the greatest praise you could ever get,” Damon explained to ELLE. “Zendaya, on the other hand — there were takes where she did one thing, she did this amazing scene, and he said, ‘Cut.’ And then he went, ‘Perfect.’”
Damon continued, “Literally, Tom and I were obsessed with this. She got a ‘perfect’? I’ve never even gotten a ‘great.’ She got a ‘perfect’? He and I b—-ed about it for the entire rest of the film. ‘Did you get anything today?’ ‘No, I got a ‘good’ — moving on.’ ‘Yeah, me too.’”
Damon and Zendaya in ‘The Odyssey’
Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal StudiosDamon is the face of The Odyssey as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, whom the film follows on his 10-year trek home following the Trojan War. Zendaya stars as Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who protects Odysseus throughout his adventures. And Zendaya’s fiancé, Holland, plays Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope (Anne Hathaway), who, in Homer’s original literature, eventually leaves Ithaca to seek information about his father’s whereabouts and fate.
Damon and Holland admitted they tried to match Zendaya’s level on set, but Nolan’s rare praise made her the clear favorite. Charlize Theron also revealed that filming a brutal scene for ‘The Odyssey’ pushed her to her absolute limit.
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“We would be in the maddest, craziest situations, just all of us fighting the elements, tearing our hair out, all these things going on, and she would sort of parachute in from her other job with this sense of true grace and poise,” Nolan said of the perfect actress. “I mean, she’s literally playing a goddess; it’s a tall order. She’s a true movie star, but also an incredible actor.”
Releasing on July 17, the star-studded adaptation also features Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, and Robert Pattinson.
“I can tell you that it is an absolute masterpiece, and I’m taking myself out of that equation,” Holland recently declared. “It’s unlike anything that I’ve ever seen before. I think when I saw the movie, I found myself asking a question that I haven’t asked about a movie for a long time, which is, ‘How did you do that?'”
