Update — July 8: Nolan’s comparison started a pattern — Hathaway and Pattinson have followed with Harley Quinn and Twilight as dislikes pass 651,000.
Christopher Nolan just reached for the most sacred name in comic book movie history to hype The Odyssey.
In a new interview with the L.A. Times, via THR, the director revealed that his crew burst into applause after one of Samantha Morton’s takes as the goddess Circe, and that the last time that happened on one of his sets was nearly two decades ago with Heath Ledger on The Dark Knight.
That is about as big as praise gets from Nolan. It also lands in the middle of a rollout that has been anything but smooth, which is exactly why fans are going to raise an eyebrow at it.
Nolan Says Morton Was “The Fulcrum” Of The Odyssey
Morton plays Circe, the goddess who turns Odysseus’ men into swine, and despite limited screen time, Nolan credits her with holding the entire movie together.
“This was a massive film and she is someone who comes in and changes the dynamic,” Nolan told the L.A. Times. “In some weird way, the film lived or died over that character. She was the fulcrum.”
The director said he’d “always admired Samantha’s work,” pointing to the “depth of thinking” she brings to a role — “there are no limitations on her performance” — and revealed he built the shooting schedule around her availability.
It’s the same story he told Empire Magazine: “Samantha Morton is somebody I had wanted to work with for a very long time… She was absolutely who I had in mind as soon as I finished the script for Circe.”
And then there’s the moment both of them keep bringing up.
“After one of her takes, the crew gave her a great round of applause,” Nolan recalled. “I was talking with Emma [Thomas, Nolan’s producing partner and wife] afterwards and she remembered that the last time that had happened was with Heath Ledger on ‘The Dark Knight.'”
Thomas has told the story herself. In Empire, she recalled the same moment: “When she finished her scene, she got a round of applause from the cast and crew.”
Why That Comparison Will Raise Eyebrows
Ledger’s Joker is not just another performance. It won a posthumous Oscar and remains the gold standard every comic book movie villain has been measured against since 2008. Invoking it is the nuclear option of on-set anecdotes.
And Nolan is deploying it for a film that has spent months fighting negative sentiment, with the trailer piling up more than 600,000 dislikes by premiere day and the casting backlash that has followed the film’s handling of Homer’s women.
A Heath Ledger comparison two weeks before opening weekend is a maximal claim, the kind studios dream about and burned fans instinctively roll their eyes at. Nolan is swinging as big as he can, and he knows it.
It fits his stated approach to the whole production.
Nolan said he deliberately cast the movie big because these are iconic mythological figures, and he wanted the finest actors he could get. He described Matt Damon’s Odysseus as part everyman, part superhero, and credited the actor with leading the cast through brutal boat work on location.
Early Critics Actually Back Nolan Up
Here is the thing. The claim has receipts so far.
When the first reactions hit and called the film a triumph, Morton was singled out repeatedly, with The Independent‘s critic writing that she “damn well steals the show” in only a handful of scenes.
So the Ledger name-drop is not coming out of nowhere. Whether it holds up with paying audiences gets settled where everything gets settled, at the box office, when the movie opens July 17 and we find out if 500,000 dislikes meant anything at all.
Nolan Cannot Stop Talking Batman This Press Tour
The Dark Knight reference also caps a rollout where Nolan keeps circling back to Gotham.
He recently called his Dark Knight trilogy a strong and sincere interpretation of Batman while discussing The Odyssey, and he has drawn a line between Batman and the myth of Troy as well.
In a fitting bit of timing, the current big-screen Batman was standing on the same premiere carpet, as Robert Pattinson revealed he came to the London event straight from The Batman Part II set with his eye makeup still on.
Pattinson also delivered the funniest quote of the night, comparing his character Antinous to Jacob from Twilight, since Penelope cannot make up her mind between two guys and Antinous is just trying to convince her that Odysseus is dead and she should get over it.
Confirmed The Odyssey Details
The Odyssey is written and directed by Christopher Nolan, adapting Homer’s epic poem about Odysseus’ long journey home from the Trojan War. The cast includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Samantha Morton and Mia Goth.
It is the first film shot entirely in the IMAX format and runs 2 hours and 53 minutes. Produced by Nolan and Emma Thomas for Syncopy and distributed by Universal Pictures, The Odyssey opens in theaters and IMAX on July 17.
