‘The Odyssey’ Stars Robert Pattinson, Matt Damon & Tom Holland Have an Epic Conversation

For me, this movie came, it feels like it came at the exact perfect time in my career, in my life. It felt almost nostalgic, like the first movie I ever got. Favorite movie? Favorite movie of each other's? Well, okay, I'll start with Rob. I would say, there's a huge body of work, but I would say Josh and Penny's movie, Good Time. That was awesome. Oh yeah, that is amazing. Because I think you came on everybody's radar in those huge movies and you were in the middle of that firestorm of paparazzi, and you were the heartthrob and all of that stuff, and then suddenly it was like, come on. No, but I mean, but it feels like you curated that and really kind of deftly and beautifully and made the career you wanted to have. I think meeting Josh and Penny, I saw this little picture from their previous movie. I was always kind of looking for kind of interesting new directors and stuff, and the image they'd chosen to promote it, I was certain they were going to say, it was going to be an Eastern European director or something. I went to find out they're from New York. I was like, oh, I just know. And then, yeah, meeting them, I could just, there was such a palpable energy around them that I think, I just remember thinking like, I think you just got to kind of hitch your horse to this. Is that the expression? Hitch your horse to the wagon? Yeah, hitch your wagon, hitch your wagon to the horse. So you can just feel, it's like the train is about to leave the station. That's so, because you talk about like, buying a stock low, like, and you look at those guys now, and they're just extraordinary, and everybody knows it, but you were kind of the first on board. The way they write dialogue, it just immediately makes you want to say it out loud, and like, it's so rare to do, and I kept wanting to read it to people at parties and stuff. Right, right, that's a very good sign. Yeah, and it was like fun, and everyone else was like, yeah, cool. I was like, you don't understand. What was that story you told where you like, read a cab driver? Did you read a cab driver? A section from a movie you were doing? Yeah. You've definitely told me, it was like a, I think I've done that a few times. Oh, I did, it was the end of Remember Me. Yes, that is what it was. Did you read the monologue? Yeah. You're just like, I want to just workshop this for you. What do you think about this? Listen, we got another 20 minutes in the car, I just want to run this a few times. But yeah, it was such an exciting thing. Have you guys ever had that experience when you kind of, you find a director who like, you just personally believe in? Yeah, Chris Nolan, actually. Yeah, but not, I'm trying to think if it, that early on in their careers, when I was younger, Doug Liman had already done two terrific movies when I signed up for The Bourne Identity. What had he done before Bourne? He did Swingers for like 250 grand, and then he did Go, which I think was a few million bucks, but it's still one of my favorite movies of his. It's a really, I just watched it again a few months ago. I showed my kids, it's fantastic. Still a really interesting choice for Bourne at that time as well. It's like really, really, really cool. Yeah, they were, you know, that to the studio's credit, they chose him and he created that whole franchise. That was all Doug. In response to James Bond, funnily enough, he was just like, because at that time it was like, I think Piers was doing it, it was the late 90s, and Doug said, I just don't relate as an American to this guy, and I think we need our kind of guy, and he's kind of going to be the opposite in all these ways. Yeah, I really feel like you shaped the genre with that film. Yeah, Doug did, yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, from the action, from the fact that when you watch those movies, there is a part of you that really believes that that stuff could be happening. James Bond always kind of exists in the world of like, we know that this isn't real. That's the joy of it. Doug was trying to really ground it. I mean, it's still an elevated world, but he was trying to make it feel kind of more. We're kind of doing it like unglamorous settings as well. It's always like, it was like nice, and you get like a kind of shitty car. Yeah, it's never, he has no gadgets. He's got to just figure it out. I read the script of that all the time. That's such an amazing script. Really? Where did you get that? Yeah, the first one. Yeah, Tony, Tony Gilroy. It's the easiest to read script, and you can't put it down. As I remember it, too, the story was that Tony never read the book, seriously. Like, he just heard the premise, and he was literally like, got it, and then he went, he kept the premise, which is kind of the engine for the movie, right? Like, the guy's got amnesia, and he doesn't know who he is, and he starts to realize he has this skill set, and he doesn't know what the hell's going on, so you keep that, but like everything else that, none of that's from the book. After years of war, one could stand between my men. For me, this movie came, it feels like it came at the exact perfect time in my career, in my life. It felt almost nostalgic, like the first movie I ever got, you know? And everything was new, and shooting on film, like learning all of this stuff, and everything was in camera. Everything was, you know, it was all on IMAX, so it was this new technology that, you know, had never been done for a full film. It felt like my one chance in my life to kind of make a David Lean movie, you know? And it was like, when you screened Lawrence of Arabia for us in the middle, it was such a great, kind of midway through the shoot to go to look at that and go like, you know, God, man, that's what- This is where we're at. And this is what people used to have to do and did, and it's what made us all fall in love with cinema, and we're getting a chance to try to do something at this incredible scale that is really, really ambitious and requires every single person to kind of max out on, like no department had it easy on this movie. No, it was, I've never seen a movie that was more ambitious to try to, I mean, this, for me, was definitely the mountaintop, so I'm glad it came so far into my career. Something I saw you do, and it's when you did your big scene with Anne towards the end of the movie. It's like a nine-minute scene. You're lying there in tears. They cut. It takes five minutes to reload the camera, and you stayed in it the whole time. And you were in that state for hours because of the nature of the way we had to shoot the stuff. I didn't have to be there that day, but I remember sort of being like, I can't leave. This is unprecedented stuff that's happening right now. And to credit to Anne, too. She did the same, and they started on your coverage. She was bringing it on the other side before the, it was like, it was for me as a young actor to see two guys really at the top of their game operating like that. And also, it's not easy circumstances to be working with that camera. That's cool. She was phenomenal. But it's also like when you did the fight, when they were shooting the background guys who were reacting to your fight, and you'd been doing this fight for days. You killed like 200 people by this point. And you were doing the full choreo, full out, hitting the ground. You guys really set the tone for us who were working with Chris for the first time, working on a movie of this scale for the first time of what is expected and what is the work ethic. I think Chris sets that tone. I remember the first time I worked with him was Interstellar, and they were all up in Calgary, and they were shooting. I think I shot four days on that movie. And there's a scene where Matthew and I, you know, wrestle on a glacier. And they said, we need you to fly up to Calgary for rehearsal and fittings and things like that. I was like, great. So I flew up to Calgary, and I got there. We went into this room and put on these space suits. And he had Matthew and I like fully wrestling in this like months ahead of when, and I was like, okay, this is how this guy rolls. Like he's very, he's demanding of himself and everybody. I mean, it's all about the thing that he's trying to make. And I actually just re-watched Tenet, and I hadn't seen it except for the very first time I saw it. And I forgot how kind of emotional it is. At the end of that movie is just, I just love the, I mean, it just really walloped me. I was like, wow, I forgot about that. He has this brand that's like very, very universally exciting to everybody, which is like, it's so difficult to maintain at that level. I think probably Batman McCain's was the first. I feel like I must have seen Memento before. But I remember the Batman movies having such a massive effect. And I remember watching Memento for the first time. And it's actually, I've never directed anything and I would love to one day, but I remember thinking for the first time, like, wow, that must be so cool to take people on a ride like that. And for people to leave a theater and have different opinions on things or to be asking like, did you understand what that was? And then obviously the Batmans, I remember taking my grandparents to watch the Batmans because I would have been about 13 maybe when they came out. And obviously I love those movies. I remember I was doing the Twilight movies when they were coming out. I mean, a little bit afterwards. I think maybe the Batman McCain's was probably 2006, maybe. Yeah, probably somewhere in there. I remember like when I was doing press for Twilight, being so full of like hope, like when saying those movies, because like it was just when every movie was starting to be a superhero movie. And it's like, oh, there's this kind of sort of outlier where it's like you can kind of have these kind of operatic performances that no one is discounting like at all. They're just saying that they're really amazing performances in it. And the movies are really cool. It's kind of a before and after Chris Nolan, I think for superhero movies. And the weird thing is it's always impossible to replicate them. Yeah. They sort of feel dark, but they're actually really fun, which is almost impossible to do. I remember talking to Chris when I first got the job, like I was supposed to be very, very secret. His first question was, so what did they make the cape out of? And I was like, getting just so curious. And I was like, oh, it's kind of like messed up looking at it. No, no, no, no. It should always look like a superhero, like pristine, no matter if you're blown up or anything. I was like, oh, interesting. I had never even thought about it. Like the rules, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, oh, I'm sort of doing the opposite. I remember too, I did a movie where I had this kind of exoskeleton on and we had these fight scenes and we brought in Lee Smith, who had edited the Batman movies. And I was talking to Chris about it. I said, well, Lee came in and really helped with the action. He goes, yeah, because we had the same problem with the Batsuit because it was actually so cumbersome. He's like, you take out the windup of the punch. Oh, interesting. So you're just cutting, just it's like, dum, dum, dum, dum. It's like, you never see him actually like pull his fist back and cock it. And I'm like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. Like if you're in this giant rubber suit, it's like impossible to play like an extended, extended wide in, you know, because it's- They're doing that in the wide, like cutting out the- No, no. I mean, they're just, they're cutting in and out of the wides and then in the close, they're just taking out the chambering of the punch. It's always the most embarrassing thing. You're just doing something. And I always noticed that the more takes I do, I get louder and louder and louder with my noises and slower and slower. Like you're just like, aah! Just one punch and you're done. I think sometimes when I've been making superhero movies, you sit in the meetings before the script has been written and they have these big set pieces already that they want to try and somehow squeeze into the movie. And it always damages the character arc because the set pieces feel unnecessary. And I feel like Chris does the opposite of that, which is like, let's figure out the story and the arc of the characters first and then the scale can be additive to that. Also the way he shoots, it really feels like an independent movie where you're shooting. It doesn't have any of that machinery, like you're saying, kind of overpowering it. It's, you know, he has all the elements that he needs and then he trusts his heads of department to, he doesn't know where the camera's going to go with Hoyt. They know what the grammar of the film is, right? And then they find the shot based on the rehearsal and then the camera's there. And then you see like Neil with the Marine unit, like, get the boats on the boat. You know, and suddenly these sailboats just come into the, like by take two, you've kind of got like all of these things coordinated and working together and it's not prescriptive. He lets it be kind of organically grow out of the, and it feels very kind of run and gun and indie. Yeah. Yeah, I found that in that fight scene that we did in the cave. That was the first kind of big day that I'd had on set and we shot this fight scene and I'd been rehearsing it for weeks and he shot my side and your side in a complete take. There was no like picking up little sections of the fight, which in my world, when you do superheroes, you might do like a one second beat and cut and then do it again and watch it and cut. And it just, you're right. It creates the most organic kind of setting. And he had to slow you down. Cause I was getting too excited. No, not even the choreography was like too good. Yeah, cause he wants it to be messy and he doesn't want you to look like this kind of seasoned vet. Like my character is supposed to be kind of winging it for most of the time. And yeah, I found that to be really difficult day one. I just always notice as well that there's something, he just has his capacity for concentration. It's just insane. I don't think I've ever seen another director who you don't see him leave set. You don't see him leave next to the camera, like ever. No, with as much black tea as he drinks too, which is incredible. It's incredible. You never really see him leave. Not at all. I think the thing I admired about him the most, you know, beyond his talent and his leadership skills is that this is the hardest job I've ever had in terms of like the workload. And I can only imagine what it was like for you, but he's there every day. He wouldn't ask you to do anything that he wouldn't do himself. Like when we were hiking up that mountain. No, he doesn't ask anybody to do anything that he's not going to do too. No, not at all. Say, and I did come and tell me to hold this dog, which I was like, that dog is going to bite me. I was like, you hold it. He doesn't know what to be held. Yeah, I remember that. That's one of the scariest stunts I think I've ever done. It wasn't even a stunt. I think I said to Ben Affleck when I got back that every location on this movie would have been the hardest location on any other movie I've ever done. And any day of work would have been harder than any other day of work on any movie I'd ever done. I remember like pulling up in the ferry in Favignana and him pointing to the top of the mountain. He's like, we're shooting. And I just, you just start laughing. You're like, of course we are. And there's no, you know, oh, we got to walk up. Yeah, that totally makes sense. And walk down at the end of the day, you know, all together. And, you know, the grips are key. Building platforms like outside Zeus's cave in Pylos, like, you know, in the middle of a trail, like we had no business shooting in these places and everybody knew it. And that was kind of this weird exhilaration that we all had was at the end of every day, you'd be like, man, we made our day. Like, great job, everybody. It was an adventure every day. What do you think was your hardest day? That's funny. I remember Hamesh said to me, we were in Iceland and it was night and it was like raining sideways on us. I mean, it was just drilling us. We were walking back to this ship that wasn't even a ship. It wasn't seaworthy. It was this, an art department creation that we just needed to be able to get on and off, all the guys. And it was like, it felt like it could go at any minute, but we're walking back, we're resetting. And Hamesh said, do you think today is the hardest day of filming you've ever had in your career? And I said, I don't know, Hamesh. They go, but if it wasn't, it was another day on this movie and you were there. So you tell us. Because we were in some crazy places. I remember turning up the first day, I turned up in Favignano and I was like, oh, this is going to be nice, nice hotel. Italy and no one was around. And when I suddenly started seeing the crew and actors come back and it literally looked like people were coming back from the trenches. I've never seen. Friday afternoons, you could see, and everybody needed, and the weekends were just people just went, they got a bite to eat and they went to bed. It was just, everybody was just. Crawling home. Yeah. I think the crew like really, I've never seen a group of people work as hard as this. No way. And come together and be elite. Really experienced crew too. And I had that conversation with all of them at various times throughout the shoot. Like hardest movie you've ever done. They were like, oh, **** yeah. Like not even close. Like there's nothing that comes close to this. And I remember Nilo, the first AD saying to me one day, we were sitting there probably halfway through and we're out on the ocean somewhere. So they're setting up a shot. And Nilo goes, you know, you look around, every single one of these people could be on an easier movie and making more money. Yeah, totally. Wow, yeah. Like every single person was like a repeat customer. Like they'd done movies with Chris. They knew exactly what they were signing up for and they wanted to be a part of it. And that you could really feel in everyday shooting. I think the thing I love the most about our jobs is learning something new. You know, on the Odyssey, it's sword fighting. I've never done anything like that before. So for me, you know, finding something where you can sit down with, you know, one of the best in the world in a very specific field. It's like James on the Odyssey. Yeah, yeah. Like learning how to shoot bow and arrows with this like absolute legend was so fun. Yeah, I agree. It's that research part where, cause you get this access that you would just never otherwise get. Like who would let you just into their life? Yeah. You know, like when you're researching someone. I remember on Spider-Man one, you know, in the UK we really romanticize what the American high school life is like. You know, we watch movies and we see how fun it is and all that sort of stuff. And I secretly enrolled in the Bronx School of Science and went for like two weeks at this school. I had like a fake accent. My chaperone pretended to be my dad and would like drop me off at school every day. And like, they're like the smartest kids in America. They're like genius kids. And I'm thick as ---- when it comes to science. And yeah, I took all the classes. I was great in gym. Like gym was like my class I really excelled at. But like in what other line of work would you get to do something like that? You know? So you went to school for two weeks? Yeah, the Bronx School of Science. And none of the kids knew? Like, would you go eat lunch with the kids? Yeah, I made friends. I was like a new exchange student. I had a backstory. I have videos on my phone. I actually have a video on my phone of a teacher throwing chalk at me because I was on my phone. Cause I was trying to document it all. I'll show you afterwards, it's actually nuts. But yeah, like that research stuff, like there's no world in where you could do something like that. I bartended down in Knoxville, Tennessee to pick up an accent and did that for like a month. You did it for a month? Yeah. Yeah, it was a big break for me. It was in a Francis Ford Coppola movie. And I had a month to kill. And then we were going to have three weeks of rehearsals at, you know, in Napa Valley where he lived. And so I went, I moved to Knoxville and I just told this, the manager, this woman, I was just told her what I was doing. And so it was an extra bartender for her at no charge. Right? So I was like, I'll give all my tips to these guys. And I just, I just need, I just need to be here. Cause if you're serving drinks to people and the guy was a bartender in the movie, but if so but if you're serving drinks to people, they talk to you. And so you can. Do you find if you immerse yourself that much into an accent that you find it harder to shake it? I don't know. It's weird for me, like accents. I have a really easy time with accents in America. Okay. They just come very naturally to me. I think because I have a pretty neutral starting place to jump off into these different directions. And then, and then going abroad is much harder for me. The guys still, for the life of me all the movies I've done in England, I still can't hear. Like, you know, I have friends, English friends who go like, I can tell you not only where a person's from but where they're trying to make you think they're from. And like, like you guys understanding of all of that is so deeply ingrained. And, and I just, I can't really hear it. That's the thing I always struggle with regional English accents especially regional London accents. Mainly cause like exactly because of that. Cause there's so much kind of so much of who you are as an English person it's purely accent based. I mean, I guess it's the same as American as well but it's like. It's very nuanced too. The movie that I quote the most probably in my life I've quoted the most is probably Midnight Run. That was always a favorite. We used to quote Ben and I. You got him. I say that three at a time. Yeah. So that one. And then my, with my kids, I definitely, oh, my with my dad, three amigos was one that with my brother and my dad and with my kids, definitely a lot of Will Ferrell's movies definitely Step Brothers, Talladega Nights. And we always say as a Will Ferrell quote like, hey lady in the red hat. From, that's not like one of the quotes. I was like, you know that thing, that moment. Have you ever seen the thing when he's on Eastbound and Down, my plums? Oh my word. Oh my God. Like when I'm on the road and just movie bloopers make me laugh. I think more than any, like I just start I get a contact high and I start giggling. We didn't have any of that on this movie. Not really, no. But I am, I lose. I am, I am the least professional person when it comes to that because once I get going, it's hard to stop. You'd listen to the IMAX film, like rolling through the camera and you'd suppress your laughter. You're like that film is so expensive. I think I went up on one line in this movie. I think I went up on one line. I was like, I am never going to go up on a line. Like I, it's just the producer in me. Yeah, you hear that two and a half minute, you know, mag just ripping. And it sounds like a blender. And the way they dialed in reloading the camera. Well, Keith, yeah, those guys are amazing. Him and Emily, I remember being on a boat one day and Chris was like, Chris was doing the clapperboard and you know, it was just us and him on the boat. Like he really gets stuck in. And I think at one point the camera jammed and it was raining sideways and the boat is tipping like this. And Keith and Emily, like I thought to the untrained eye, like, oh, that's a bust. Like the camera's broken. We're two miles off the coast. Like we're going to have to go back to land. And they just figured it out. It was amazing to see.