“The Odyssey” looks to be the biggest movie of the summer, led by a star-studded cast. Director Christopher Nolan knew the task he had ahead of making the film. It’s a historic tale, one that created perceptions of characters in these written-to-camera movies. When it came to casting for the film, he knew there could be pushback from fans; however, his time directing one of the biggest blockbusters had him well prepared.
Christopher Nolan Prepared for Any Casting Pushback
Nolan made it clear you can’t please everybody. Despite Matt Damon, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway and Robert Pattinson’s names on “The Odyssey” cast credits, he learned to ignore anyone questioning his choices. He had a similar mindset before “The Dark Knight” production.
“These conversations that happen before people see the film — they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet,” Nolan told ‘The Guardian.’ “But remember … I spent 10 years of my life dealing with Batman.”
GettyIt wasn’t just about Batman himself, either.
Many questioned the award-winning director for casting Heath Ledger as “Joker” in the 2008 film. Ledger won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and put on one of the best performances anyone’s ever seen on the silver screen. The award was posthumous as the 28-year-old passed away suddenly in 2008.
“When I came on to ‘”‘Batman Begins,'”‘ writers and artists had been working on this beloved character for almost 65 years, and a lot of freighted thoughts were out there about what he represents,” Nolan said. “And what I learnt over my time on that trilogy is you can’t worry about any of that at all. What you have to do is honour the original text by interpreting it in the strongest way you personally can.”
Nolan understands the mindset behind fans. “Batman” originally started as a comic book series in 1939, so over time, it created its own audience. Both “The Caped Crusador” and the supporting characters had been cast in those other forms before audiences consumed them in movies. They were biased, as most fans can be.
From ‘The Dark Knight’ to ‘The Odyssey’
For Homer’s longstanding story, it was no different.
Getty“In the end, fans of the property — even when we were doing something that was not what they would have done — enjoyed the sincerity of the attempt to put as good a version of it on screen as we could,” he said. “All I can do is make the best film I possibly can in the most sincere way. It’s very different from how anyone else would do it, but that’s what adaptation is.”
Tom Holland, Charlize Theron, Elliot Page, Lupita Nyong’o, Travis Scott and John Leguizamo all star in the movie set to hit theaters on July 17.
