Matt Damon has made it very clear that filming The Odyssey was not an easy feat. He’s gotten real about the rough conditions they worked in, and one time, he told a story about how his co-star, Charlize Theron, acted through “30-to-40-mile-an-hour wind.” Now, the actor and the film’s director, Christopher Nolan, have recalled what it was like to shoot the cave scene, and they described it as “pungent” and “dank” (oh, and it involved a “curtain of bees”).
Now, those familiar with The Odyssey know that a major sequence involves a cyclops and a cave. So, to pull that off in his book-to-screen adaptation, Nolan used animatronics and puppetry to bring the cyclops to life, and they filmed in a legitimate cave. That cave is what we’re going to really focus on, as the director provided quite the description of it while speaking with Empire:
It got pungent. Yeah, it got very, very dank and smelly after a time. But I’ve built a lot of caves before — shooting in a real cave, the feeling is utterly different. Once the rock is moved across the door and you’re in the dark, it’s very, very oppressive. It gave it a sense of reality.
Well, that sounds scary and quite stinky, which I guess aligns with the things the men in The Odyssey would feel and smell when they entered the cave Polyphemus was in.
In real life, this location is actually called Nestor’s Cave, and it’s in Messenia, Greece. And according to Nolan, by filming in it, they were able to get a “sense of reality” in this film that features fantastical creatures.
However, while filming in the cave brought realism to the project on the 2026 movie schedule that will likely really enhance the experience on the big screen, it sounds like it was quite uncomfortable for the team to work in. That’s because, along with it being “dank and smelly,” there were also “thousands of bees” at the mouth of it, as Matt Damon recalled:
At the cave mouth, there was a buzzing. And you can hear it in the movie, because there were thousands of bees right at the mouth of the cave. You had to walk through this curtain of bees to get in.
If I were in that cave, I’d 100% have screamed. However, it seems like these guys worked through it, and you will be able to hear the bees in the movie. So, when The Odyssey is released in theaters, maybe keep an ear out for some extra buzzing when they’re in that cave.
Now, while I kind of love that we will be able to hear the bees, I’m very happy smell-o-vision isn’t a thing. The last thing I want to smell is that “dank” and “pungent” cave.
However, I do have mad respect for Nolan, Damon and their crew for bearing the elements, the bees and the smells of that cave. The Oscar-winning director learned from The Dark Knight that it’s important to have “gone to the mat” for his movies, and it’s clear that he’s putting in that level of work and commitment on The Odyssey. So, I’m looking forward to seeing how that translates to the big screen when this epic premieres on July 17.
