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Since opening on Friday, director Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has wowed audiences around the world with his epic interpretation of Homer’s ancient Greek poem. At the global box office, The Odyssey has already earned a robust $282 million and a rare CinemaScore A rating from audiences.
Nolan filmed around the world, framing the natural landscapes of Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland and the United States as locales for the Trojan War and the places where Greek king Odysseus (Matt Damon) faces trials from the gods during his 10-year trek back home to his wife, Queen Penelope of Ithaca (Anne Hathaway), and his adult son, Telemachus (Tom Holland).
The director also shot much of The Odyssey practically, including the chilling sequence where Odysseus and the surviving soldiers of Ithaca are trapped inside the sleeping cave of the Cyclops creature, more formally known as Polyphemus, the one-eyed son of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon.
Find out below how Nolan used multiple techniques, including filming a 60-foot puppet, to bring one of the most harrowing scenes in The Odyssey to life.
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Who plays the Cyclops in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey?
Over his career as a director, Christopher Nolan has built up a troupe of actors he often repeatedly uses in his films. For the giant creature Polyphemus, Nolan tapped the talents of Tony-winning theatrical clown and actor Bill Irwin (How the Grinch Stole Christmas). As Polyphemus, Irwin performed as the Cyclops in the cave while in prosthetics and full body makeup.
A master of physical performance acting, Irwin also helped Nolan develop the movement of the robots TARS and CASE for Interstellar. He then performed the puppetry during filming, and voiced TARS.
Where did they shoot the Cyclops sequence in The Odyssey?
Polyphemus’ cave was filmed in the ancient location of Nestor’s Cave in Messenia, Greece.
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Is the Cyclops in The Odyssey CG or practical effects?
In The Odyssey's production notes, Nolan explained that finding the right way to integrate the Cyclops character into the film was one of his greatest challenges.
"How can we take something that seems so fantastic and make you believe in it?” the director wondered. "The advantage I had going into The Odyssey was that I now have a lot of experience with different types of techniques of how to put things on film, whether you’re talking about the use of visual effects, practical effects, stunts, real locations, building sets, and many more. We needed to use all of it for The Odyssey, and in particular, for the Cyclops. Every trick in the book.”
The end result is a mixture of the physical performance of Irwin, who was filmed separately and from below which helped to create the impression of giant scale and size for the human actor. The cave and soldiers were then shot inside the cave with Irwin present to provide vocalizations in real-time alongside a 60-foot puppet version of the Cyclops. The massive puppet gave the actors a stand-in object to look at so they could create a credible eye-line for the finished composited sequence.
Through VFX, Irwin’s live performance and the soldiers and sheep footage was married together for a seamless integration that leans more on practical photography than the more common CG digital character choice of many modern films.
