Ben Affleck may not be part of the buzzy ensemble cast for Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey,” but that doesn’t mean the writer/director/actor won’t be on set.
Affleck told GQ that he will probably visit his Artists Equity cofounder Matt Damon during “The Odyssey” shoot; Damon is playing the lead role of Odysseus. Damon and Nolan previously collaborated on “Oppenheimer.”
“I may go visit Matt [Damon] on the set [of ‘The Odyssey’] just to watch Nolan direct,” Affleck said of learning from the auteur. “I’m not even kidding at all.” He added that Nolan “is one of the great filmmaking architects to ever live.”
“The Odyssey” is Nolan’s reimagining of the iconic Greek epic about hero Odysseus who spends a decade trying to return home after fighting in the Trojan War. The film was announced in December 2024 as Nolan’s 13th feature. The ensemble cast includes a slew of reunions for Nolan in addition to working again with Damon, including Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Elliot Page, and Benny Safdie. Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Mia Goth, Jon Bernthal, and John Leguizamo also star in the Universal film.
“Christopher Nolan’s next film ‘The Odyssey’ is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology,” the studio Universal wrote in a post on X announcing the film in December. “The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026.”
Leguizamo said during MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Nolan still works like an independent filmmaker despite having a massive budget. “He’s got a crazy budget, it’s not small, but he runs [it] like an indie film because he’s not doing it by committee, he’s not doing it by what the studio says,” Leguizamo said. “He’s like an indie filmmaker but with crazy money.”
Nolan previously told Time that he wants to push the boundaries of filmmaking for both indies and blockbusters.
“I’m drawn to working at a large scale because I know how fragile the opportunity to marshal those resources is,” Nolan said. “I know that there are so many filmmakers out there in the world who would give their eye teeth to have the resources I put together, and I feel I have the responsibility to use them in the most productive and interesting way.”
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