Matt Damon's Odysseus, a Trojan Horse on a Moroccan Beach: How Nolan's The Odyssey Was Built

Christopher Nolan wanted his Odysseus to be an American, a worker among workers and an everyman. That was the starting point for the casting of Matt Damon, the film's casting director John Papsidera said at a crafts panel at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, as Variety reported on 9 November 2026.

Papsidera has cast Nolan's films since Memento in 2000. At the Savannah panel, he talked through the search for the film's actors, and the way the director framed the hero. Odysseus, in this version, is a plain man who has to get home, not a king in a gilded hall.

The other big casting choice is Samantha Morton as Circe. In Homer's epic, Circe is a sorceress, and in Nolan's film she is a witch who turns Odysseus' men into pigs. Morton has described the part as "a second chance," as Variety reported in July, and as "life-changing" in an interview with People that same month. She also told Today that she refused to do a "deep dive" into research before taking the role. She added that her Circe scene is not CGI, meaning the effect was achieved in camera rather than added later by computer.

The sets were just as ambitious. Production designer Ruth De Jong oversaw a Troy set covering more than 2.5 acres, or over 110,000 square feet. It held more than 60 structures and room for 2,000 extras.

Several of the film's locations sit a long way from one another. Ithaca, Odysseus' home island, was played by a fifth-century castle in Italy, perched about 1,030 feet above sea level. Multiple Trojan horses, each standing about 35 feet tall, were built for the story. The beaches of Essaouira, on Morocco's Atlantic coast, served as the place where the Trojan horse is discovered and as the launch point for Odysseus' boat.

Circe's house is a different kind of build. It was constructed on the edge of a cliff in the Scottish Highlands, close to the ocean. Rather than flatten the ground, the crew designed it around the existing craggy rocks, so the house looks as though it grew out of the landscape.

The film had its premiere in London, People reported in July. Papsidera's remarks, and the set details given in the Variety piece, show how much of the film was planned in advance: a cast chosen for a particular reading of a hero, a witch's house fitted to a cliff, and a horse built big enough to be seen from a distance. Each of those choices was made by a person, and each one now sits on screen.