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Christopher Nolan may be a legendary director, but his unusual methods for getting in touch with the talent of his films are being exposed by The Odyssey star Matt Damon.
Damon, 55, one of Hollywood’s biggest names, is the latest star to appear in one of Nolan’s legendary films, with The Odyssey expected to be a massive box office success for the summer movie season, which is known for its blockbusters.
Now, after also opening up about the “Non-negotiable” rule in his 20-year marriage to Luciana Barroso, Damon is lifting the lid on the unusual way Nolan got in touch with him to let him know he was going to portray Odysseus in the film.
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Speaking to People Magazine, Damon shared that Nolan’s wife, Emma Thomas, was the one who got in touch with him because Nolan does not have a cell phone. “[Emma] had texted me, ‘Are you around for a call today?’ Because Chris famously doesn’t have a phone,” Damon recalled.
He added that Thomas, 54, is always the one who gives celebs a “heads-up” if he’s going to call, before sharing the next part of the process.
“And then you get a phone call from a nondescript number, because he’s just picking up a line at Universal Studios,” Damon said, adding that even Nolan “doesn’t know what number it’s going to be.”
He then shared that call was about “10 or 15 minutes” long and had been only six months after Oppenheimer had been a major winner at the Oscars–including the best director title for Nolan.
The epic film sees Damon star as the protagonist in Greek and Roman mythology, as he faces his dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and the nymph Calypso along the way.
The film also stars Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Tom Holland, Elliot Page, Jon Bernthal, and John Leguizamo.
Nolan has become one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, with credits including The Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Man of Steel, Inception, Interstellar, and more.
He has been nominated for screenplay Oscars for Memento, Inception, and Oppenheimer, and also earned Best Picture nods for Inception and Dunkirk, as well as a directing nod for Dunkirk. He won both the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for Oppenheimer.
Despite being behind the films, which have seen him work with high-profile A-list stars like Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harry Styles, Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr, Nolan has famously always eschewed a cell phone, and even said in a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he refuses to communicate via text or email, and also writes scripts on a computer that isn’t connected to the internet.
“My kids would probably say I’m a complete Luddite,” he said at the time. “I would actually resist that description. I think technology and what it can provide is amazing. My personal choice is about how involved I get. It’s about the level of distraction.”
“If I’m generating my material and writing my own scripts, being on a smartphone all day wouldn’t be very useful for me.”
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