Tom Holland says Robert Pattinson eased his Odyssey nerves
Holland told Entertainment Weekly that Pattinson’s casting as Antinous helped him handle the pressure of Christopher Nolan’s epic.
By Poppy Nakagawa · Culture Writer
2 min read
Tom Holland says Robert Pattinson’s arrival in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey gave him a little breathing room on a very high-pressure job.
During an appearance on Entertainment Weekly’s Around the Table, Holland said he felt he “could relax” after finding out Pattinson would play Antinous in the film. Holland plays Telemachus, the son of Matt Damon’s Odysseus, while Pattinson plays one of the suitors pursuing Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway.
That casting mattered to Holland because the tension between Telemachus and Antinous helps launch his character’s story. According to Holland, the early scenes involving their characters carry the job of setting up the stakes for Damon’s Odysseus.
“What was really exciting for me, and also really daunting, was that we get to establish the stakes of the movie for Matt’s journey right at the beginning,” Holland told Entertainment Weekly. “I felt the weight of that pressure.”
Holland said he was worried about making the conflict feel believable enough to justify Telemachus making what he described as a desperate choice to begin his journey. Pattinson’s casting, he said, changed the temperature for him.
“I knew when I found out that you were playing Antinous that I could relax because you’re so good at being a dickhead,” Holland said during the roundtable, addressing Pattinson.
The comment came with history behind it. The Odyssey marks the third film shared by Holland and Pattinson, after The Lost City of Z in 2016 and The Devil All the Time in 2020.
Holland told Entertainment Weekly that he has enjoyed working with Pattinson across those projects and said Pattinson raises the intensity of scenes. He added that he has felt he left set as a stronger actor after working opposite him.
Nolan’s The Odyssey brings the ancient Greek story into a star-heavy screen version led by Damon as Odysseus. The cast also includes John Leguizamo, Zendaya, Benny Safdie and Charlize Theron, according to Deadline.
Deadline’s box office coverage of the film said The Odyssey was eyeing a U.S. opening above $120 million, with a global figure at $257 million-plus, described by the outlet as Nolan’s best worldwide opening.
For Holland, though, the focus in the Entertainment Weekly discussion was the acting challenge at the start of the movie: making Telemachus’ fear, pressure and friction with Antinous land hard enough to power the story ahead.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.