As Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey sets a career record for his highest-grossing film at $1.1 billion, the epic is still rolling out in countries across the world. Another week, and another great conversation has emerged from his tour through Asia. This time, Oldboy and No Other Choice director Park Chan-wook spoke with Nolan about the film as the two shared a mutual admiration for the other’s talents.
Park specifically discusses his favorite aspects of the film––the bookending of the Trojan horse, the invention and integration of the sound of Odysseus’ bow-plucking into the score, a memorable moment of violence––as well touching on the title card, the lack of gods, and more.
Check out an English translation of the transcription below, edited for clarity, followed by the complete video.
Park Chan-wook: Welcome to Korea. Promoting a movie after finishing it is an exhausting process. While I love every step of being a film director, this is the one part I’d like to avoid if possible. How about you?
Christopher Nolan: I feel the exact same way.
Ever since I saw Memento, I have been a huge fan of yours. As movies get bigger, it’s rare and incredibly difficult for them to get better, but you’ve managed to achieve that throughout film history.
Well, thank you. Coming from you, that means a lot. Other than my immense respect for you and your work, it is a thrilling thing to hear that from a fellow director who understands the process so well.
I still vividly remember when I was filming The Sympathizer and met Robert Downey Jr. He talked about his experience on Oppenheimer and how exhilarating it was working with you—specifically having your IMAX camera placed right in front of his face. I can still see the expression on his face when he described it.
It’s a very large camera and it makes a lot of noise. When you put it right in an actor’s face, they fully understand that all attention is on them and that they have to truly experience the moment for real. Working with Robert on that film—as you know from working with him yourself—was a tremendous thrill to work with a great like him.
Speaking of The Odyssey, I was completely captivated right from the opening scene. The wooden horse resting in the sea, the Trojan knights riding towards it… that opening was so beautiful and mesmerizing that I found myself wishing those shots were much longer—maybe even 10 minutes long—because of how deeply pulled in I was.
Thank you. It’s tremendous to hear that. That opening image was something I held in my head for a long time—for about 20 years: “How would I approach the Trojan horse? How would I do that?”
I became really fascinated by this idea of using the horse not the way it’s traditionally represented, with wheels and easily brought into the city. But for an audience who knows the trick, how do you sell it?
To me, it was this idea of it being half-buried in the sand—this kind of fallen monument, very much like the Statue of Liberty at the end of the first Planet of the Apes movie. We see this fallen monument being destroyed by the waves. And so in that way, it became sort of very unlikely for me that this would be taken back into the city, that it would be full of Greeks. But it’s an image—as I’m sure you have yourself—it’s an image that I held with me for years and years, wanting to film.
My latest project, No Other Choice, took 20 years from the time I first read the original book. I originally planned to adapt it as an American film, but after writing the script for a long time, I concluded that making it in Korea was a much better outcome for me. Similarly, I hope you feel that making The Odyssey now yielded a more satisfying result than when you first considered directing it.
For No Other Choice, the core image I held onto for 20 years was a portrait of a happy family. That’s why the film opens with a patriarch experiencing ultimate happiness with his family—and even his dogs—set to a Mozart horn concerto. That initial image was there from the beginning and stayed intact after 20 years.
Taking an American story and setting it in a Korean context really made it vibrant and alive for me. I love the film, and I do believe that things work out sometimes for the best. I’m very pleased that I got to make The Odyssey when I made it.
What I’m curious about regarding the adaptation is that the story begins and ends with the Trojan Horse. How did you arrive at that structural decision?
To me, it became very important, and I think sometimes for me that’s a process of thinking about what’s important to the audience, what image will stick with the audience, and what can it mean? What can the resonance be?
And so even though the Trojan horse is not a big feature of the Odyssey—it’s referred to in passing in flashbacks—for an audience coming to a story that’s about Troy and about the character who engineered the fall of Troy, that’s the kind of cinematic, visual symbol that stays with you.
I pondered why the director chose this image to begin and end the film, knowing how crucial that decision was and that everything must be contained within it.
I interpreted your choice as highlighting Odysseus’s sense of guilt over using a cowardly trick—using the horse as an offensive weapon. Prioritizing guilt, which is entirely different from Homer’s original narrative, seemed to be the core point of your version of Odysseus, which is why you chose it to frame the beginning and end.
That was very much my journey of adapting—coming to my own interpretation of what the horse represented and what the character of Odysseus could represent to modern audiences.
But I think the reason that the poem has fascinated different cultures and different generations for 3,000 years is because it has elemental truth to it. It has primal, human, relatable things in it that each generation finds a new interpretation for. So it’s a simple poem in a way, and it allows for interpretation—it can be pulled in a lot of different directions. And I think that was part of the satisfaction really of working on the adaptation, to look at it from that perspective.
Homer himself wrote an ancient story from the perspective of his own era. Having old stories reinterpreted and adapted through the lens of each passing era is their fate and where their true value lies. Simply translating Homer verbatim into 21st-century cinema would hold little purpose. I think absolutely no one could criticize this adaptation by saying it ruined the original story.
As a fellow director, inside the Trojan horse when swords come thrusting in, a soldier gets stabbed, and the moment the sword is pulled out, someone quickly wipes the blood off the blade—that directing detail was so great and thrilling. I was amazed by the director’s sense to retain those tiny details while interpreting and executing such a grand story.
I think it is finding details like that that the audience does remember. I think that’s something you see time and time again in your own work as well. Very often, it is the smaller things that people remember—the very human, very relatable things that connect them with the story, things they can imagine experiencing themselves. That sticks with them more than the grandeur that was put together.
Another moment I found thrilling was when Odysseus plucks his bowstring before shooting to produce a warning sound—a setting not in the original text, as far as I know. That in itself was very interesting and communicated the character well through a small action. But beyond that, using that pluck sound as part of the music—incorporating sound effects into the score—is something I really love. This was one of the finest achievements of that technique. It was so enjoyable.
I’ve loved that in films for many years. I was very inspired by the films of Sergio Leone and the way—for example in Once Upon a Time in the West—the harmonic relationship between diegetic and non-diegetic music works, bringing sound effects and music together in that moment. It’s thrilling to hear that that worked for you.
Ludwig Göransson, the composer, and myself worked on it a long time, trying to figure out a way that he could use the string instrument to construct a tune that would end with the bow note—the pluck of the bow—and feel like a conclusion.
But I’m not surprised to hear how interested you are in sound. When I was watching Decision to Leave, the scene at the police station where they are eating sushi—the sound of them eating is so tactile, it’s almost like ASMR. It brings you into such close proximity with the characters.
In The Odyssey, adapting it must have been a long journey, but you excluded all 12 Olympian gods except for Athena. Even Athena isn’t portrayed as an all-powerful manipulator who controls everything as in the original, but rather as someone giving advice and showing concern. Was the decision to omit the gods made from the start, or did it emerge during the writing process?
It came about as I was planning how to write the script, in the months and months that I spent just thinking about the adaptation. It was a complicated process for me because I knew that the film needed to embrace the fantastical parts—I wanted to see the Cyclops, the Sirens, and Charybdis.
When it came to the gods, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until eventually I realized that I wanted to experience the monsters from the point of view of the characters, and so it became important to me to experience the gods from the point of view of the characters as well. I didn’t want to have interactions between gods that didn’t involve the characters.
I started to think about how the gods would appear to people of that time in reality, in the Bronze Age. I realized that in a pre-scientific era, the presence of gods was everywhere—the sun rising in the morning, thunder and lightning, the wind, the waves. So I knew that I wanted to use my camera to really convey nature, and the way in which the natural world is speaking to the characters.
Then I wanted to get across an idea that became thematically very important to the film: that the gods would appear to these characters in disguise, as humble people. That’s the reason for Zeus’s law—xenia—which says: “I have to treat you as I would want to be treated, because you might be a god in disguise.” That became so important to the film.
That is a deep and profound idea. It’s moving. Watching the film, I couldn’t help but think about that aspect. An era ruled by gods—where gods control and maneuver humans, and human fate is decided by divine prophecy—comes to an end, giving way to an era led by humans who feel their own responsibility.
When gods control everything, humans don’t need to feel much responsibility. But in The Odyssey, that era ends, and humans become aware of their own responsibility—which is another word for guilt—opening a new age of civilization. That’s how I viewed the film.
I particularly paid attention to a scene near the end where Goddess Athena is sitting next to Odysseus, and when he turns around a moment later, she is gone, leaving an open door. Including that short shot—which wasn’t strictly necessary for the dramatic plot—implied that the gods had completed their role and departed, signaling the start of a new era.
Interestingly put. I don’t think I was thinking that consciously about it while making it, but as you describe your ideas and your impressions of the film, what speaks to me very strongly is: yes, the idea of characters without responsibility to a modern audience is inherently uninteresting.
We expect our characters to carry the consequences of their actions, and that’s what makes us invest in them. That does, to some extent, distinguish our modern era from the ancients. It was very important to me with the character of Athena to ultimately realize she is a representation of his consciousness—a projection of his own guilt. In a way, people might think it’s more comfortable believing the gods were responsible, but as you suggest, the film confronts him and forces him to confront his own actions.
Another element I really admired in the adaptation was how you portrayed Athena by using the appearance of the priestess/shaman working at the temple during the fall of Troy. In the flashback scene, instead of showing gruesome violence, cutting off the head of Athena’s statue stood in for decapitating the priestess—effectively depicting the violence without being explicit. But beyond that, having her face appear to Odysseus later as a representation of his guilt was a brilliant stroke of adaptation.
I was very fortunate that the actress agreed to play this part. I wanted the role to have clear significance, even though it’s a small part and she appears at different times in the story.
As a director, you know when you need the audience to lean in and pay attention to a character even if it’s a minor one. I had a slightly similar thing with Rami Malek in Oppenheimer, where he came in and played a very, very small part for me. But because it’s him, you pay attention to him in the background of a scene, and then you realize later on what a significant part he plays in the resolution of the protagonist’s story. So yes, I was very lucky she agreed.
I have a question about the title card at the start of the movie. Why was that title card necessary? The fact that it is an age of magic can be understood just by watching the film, and everyone knows the story of The Odyssey. Furthermore, what was your intention behind using the word apparent in that opening text?
One of my earliest movie experiences—a very profound one—was seeing George Lucas’s first Star Wars. He began that film with a title that said, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” That immediately told me how to watch the film. It put me in the right frame of mind to receive the imagery.
I felt with this film I was chasing that kind of experience where you want to create a world that the audience loses themselves in and takes on its own terms. So I was looking for a phrase that would help the audience understand the terms of the story.
The word apparent in particular was very much about acknowledging the idea that if we tell the story realistically, to some extent we have to explain why there is magic. I was interested in the idea that for a person living in the Bronze Age, there is magic all around you—things you cannot explain. So there are fanciful, sometimes correct or incorrect explanations for the things you’re seeing and the mysteries of life. I wanted to put that in people’s heads as they started watching.
However, what I find interesting in talking about the film is that I’m not sure as much has changed regarding how we understand the world around us as I thought when I started making the film.
I think it’s time for the final question. This is a personal one: whenever I write a screenplay, I always write with a co-writer. Partly because I need their talent and skills, but also because if I write alone, I get lazy, curious about other perspectives, and wonder if a thought is just my own isolated opinion. I always need someone else’s perspective, so I always work with a co-writer. But for this film, you wrote it entirely alone. How was that experience? Is writing solo manageable?
The advantage you have is that Homer wrote the poem, so the story was already written by somebody else! In a way, you have a collaboration and a great jumping-off point. I felt the same in adapting Oppenheimer, because I was adapting a great book written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
I also have collaborators around me. My brother Jonathan, whom I’ve written screenplays with in the past, is always too busy to work with me these days, but I will always show him what I’m doing, pick his brain, and use him as a sounding board. When it gets too lonely and isolated—where you feel you can’t see the forest for the trees—you find ways to reach out to people.
On the other hand, there are advantages to writing on your own. You can be very particular about how and when you do things, creating a rhythm that works for you personally without accommodating someone else’s process. So there are pros and cons, but I feel I have the best of both because of collaborators, people like Emma, people like my brother, that I can get a lot of help from.
Regrettably, our time is up, so we must end our conversation here. I hope you adjust well to the jet lag, complete the rest of your promotional schedule safely, and don’t be lazy—please make your next movie quickly!
This has been a great privilege and an honor for me to meet you. I have been such a fan of yours for so long and admire your work so much. To have you respond to a film of mine is very thrilling for me. It’s been a great honor to talk to you, so thank you so much. Thank you very much.
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