Ludwig Göransson built The Odyssey score from bronze, scrap and ancient sounds
Christopher Nolan asked for a score without orchestra, sending Göransson toward gongs, metal, lyre, aulos and vocals for the ancient epic.
By Poppy Nakagawa · Culture Writer
3 min read
Christopher Nolan gave Ludwig Göransson one firm musical boundary for The Odyssey: leave the orchestra out of it.
According to Variety, the composer’s new score for Nolan’s ancient Greek epic marks his third film with the director, following Tenet and Oppenheimer. This time, Göransson traded the familiar sweep of orchestral scoring for bronze, battered metal, ancient instruments and voices.
Göransson told Time earlier this year that Nolan’s instruction made historical sense. “It’s not like the orchestra existed back then,” he said, adding that the restriction became both “a challenge” and “an opening” to create something distinctive.
The approach is a sharp turn from Göransson’s work on Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, which Variety described as relying on heavy synths and guitar-driven orchestration. For The Odyssey, the sound world had to feel older, stranger and less tied to earlier screen versions of antiquity.
In a featurette released with the film, Nolan said the goal was to make ancient Greece feel accessible without repeating the visual and sonic habits of past classical epics. “We wanted the film to feel like a recognizable world to people, even though it was going to be ancient Greece,” Nolan said. He added that the team wanted to find something “more timeless” than earlier versions of that world.
Because the story is set in the Bronze Age, Nolan suggested bronze as a guiding idea for the music, Variety reported. Göransson responded by renting 35 bronze gongs in different sizes and testing their range.
The experiment did not stay neatly inside a studio. Göransson said he tried striking walls, railings and whatever else he could find outside, including scrap metal and air conditioning units. He also brought in instruments tied to the ancient world, including the lyre and the aulos.
Vocals also run through the score. Göransson told Variety they help carry some of the music’s emotional momentum.
The soundtrack includes “When I’m Home,” an original song credited to James Blake, Travis Scott, Göransson and Nolan. The full album runs 23 tracks, including pieces titled “Zeus’s Law,” “Ithaca,” “Penelope,” “Cyclops,” “Hades,” “Sirens,” “Odysseus” and “The Trial of the Bow / Vengeance.” One track, “Circe,” features Samantha Morton.
Nolan wrote the screenplay from Homer’s ancient poem and produced the film with Emma Thomas through their company Syncopy. Variety reports that Universal Pictures is distributing the movie, Nolan’s 13th feature as director.
The cast is stacked across land, sea and Olympus. Damon plays Odysseus, with Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Pattinson as Antinous, Zendaya as Athena and Charlize Theron as Circe. Variety also lists Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Will Yun Lee, Mia Goth, Jimmy Gonzales and Elliot Page among the ensemble.
This story draws on original reporting from Variety.