the last chance for me to play a boy
Holland, 30, plays the son of Odysseus searching for his absent father while protecting his mother from suitors in Nolan's ambitious mythological epic. The film features an all-star cast including Matt Damon as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope, with Holland's wife Zendaya playing goddess Athena.
- Tom Holland, 30, plays Telemachus in Christopher Nolan's Odyssey adaptation
- Matt Damon plays Odysseus; Anne Hathaway plays Penelope; Zendaya plays Athena
- First feature film ever shot entirely on Imax
- Nolan adapted Homer's 2,700-year-old epic; opens July 17, 2026
Tom Holland discusses his role as Telemachus in Christopher Nolan's epic adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, calling it a pivotal moment in his career and his last chance to play a young character on screen.
Tom Holland is thirty now, married, and sitting across from a journalist who wants to talk about the moment his career shifted into a new gear. The occasion is his first film with Christopher Nolan—a sprawling adaptation of Homer's Odyssey that the actor describes as a genuine turning point, the kind of role that marks a before and after. He's playing Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, a boy who never knew his father except through the mythologized stories whispered in the palace halls. It's a role Holland seems to understand with particular clarity: it's, as he puts it, probably his last real chance to play a boy on screen.
There's something poignant in that observation, and Holland doesn't shy from it. He's no longer the teenager who danced his way through Billy Elliot on the London stage or the young man who first suited up as Spider-Man. He's a married man now—though the details of his marriage to actress Zendaya remain off the record—and the roles available to him are shifting accordingly. Yet in Nolan's film, he gets to inhabit that liminal space one more time: a young man searching for an absent father he's placed on a pedestal, while simultaneously trying to protect his mother Penelope from the predatory suitors who've overrun their home. Anne Hathaway plays Penelope with the kind of nuance the role demands, and the two actors carry the emotional weight of a household in crisis.
The casting of Zendaya as the goddess Athena added an unexpected layer to the production. Holland read the script with her—something he admits he may not have been supposed to do—and when Nolan asked the next day if he'd be comfortable with her taking the role, Holland went home and delivered the news. "The little corners of her mouth went up," he recalls. "She had this little smile and then we both started jumping around the kitchen." It's a small moment, but it reveals something about how these two navigate their shared professional world: with genuine delight, even as they maintain professional boundaries on set. Notably, despite appearing in the same film, they never share a scene.
The supporting cast reads like a director's wish list. Matt Damon plays Odysseus, the warrior who spent ten years fighting at Troy and another ten trying to get home. When Nolan called him, Damon says, the director offered the lead role with characteristic directness. "So I just said 'Yes'. And he goes 'Don't you want to hear what it is?' I said 'Sure'. And he said 'It's a two-word pitch. The Odyssey'." That's the kind of confidence Nolan brings to his projects—and the kind of pull he has with actors at the highest level of the profession. For Holland, working with Nolan for the first time carries weight. "Before you've worked with him and before you've got that call, you think about it a lot and you yearn for that opportunity and then you get the opportunity and that comes with a lot of pressure," he explains. His strategy was straightforward: "I've got what I wanted and now it's time to show him what I can do."
Nolan himself felt the weight of expectation. His previous film, Oppenheimer, had won seven Oscars and grossed around a billion dollars worldwide. When he began adapting Homer's 2,700-year-old epic, the pressure was immense. His solution was almost comically practical: he had his son remove the Oscar statuettes from his office while he was writing. "I said to him very seriously, I'm trying to write a new project and if I've got Oscars sitting on the shelf, think about how daunting that would be," Nolan explains. "You can't really think about what's come before."
What distinguishes this Odyssey is Nolan's commitment to shooting as much as possible for real. Real ships, real seas, a real Trojan horse constructed on a real beach. The entire film was shot on Imax—the first feature ever to be shot entirely on the format—a choice Nolan defends with conviction. "If you want naturalism, if you want to show somebody the way the world looks, celluloid film is the way to do it," he says. The Trojan horse itself is reimagined as a vast bronze creature, men packed inside it like sardines, a vision Nolan has carried in his head for two decades, dating back to when he was briefly attached to direct Troy for Warner Brothers.
When the casting was announced, Elon Musk took to X to criticize the choice of Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy, sharing a post from a right-wing blogger that accused Nolan of altering characters for awards season or diversity reasons. The criticism missed the point entirely: Helen is a mythological figure, the daughter of Zeus born from a swan's egg. Her appearance in the film is told with a twist, and her story is intriguingly woven into Nolan's vision.
Nolan pushes back against the idea that he's smuggling high art through the medium of spectacle. "When you go to Homer, it's a very crowd-pleasing story. It's popcorn stuff," he says. "I mean that's the joy of it and that's why it's endured for this long." His aim is to bring something fresh, to remind audiences that what they want most is something they haven't seen before. The Odyssey opens in cinemas on July 17th, and early viewers report a visual feast that manages to be both intimate and epic—a story about a boy waiting for his father, told across an ancient world rendered in stunning detail.
Notable Quotes
It's a two-word pitch. The Odyssey.— Christopher Nolan, describing the film to Matt Damon
You can't really think about what's come before.— Christopher Nolan, on moving past Oppenheimer's success
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What strikes you most about Holland calling this his last chance to play a boy?
It's the recognition that stardom has an arc. He's not lamenting it—he seems genuinely grateful for the role—but there's an awareness that the parts available to him are changing. He's moving into a different phase of his career, and he knows it.
Why does Nolan matter so much to actors?
He's one of the few directors left who treats cinema as an event. When he calls, you answer. And he has a track record of making films that feel consequential, that push the medium itself. For Holland, it's validation at a particular moment.
The Zendaya casting seems deliberately complicated—they're married but never on screen together.
It's a way of keeping their professional lives separate while still collaborating. They read the script together, which was intimate, but then they maintain boundaries on set. It suggests a maturity about how to navigate shared ambition.
Does Nolan's strategy of hiding his Oscars while writing reveal something about how he works?
It shows he's aware of the trap of past success. He can't afford to be haunted by what came before. The only way forward is to forget the weight and focus on the story itself.
What's the real story beneath the casting controversy?
It's about who gets to inhabit mythology. Helen is a mythological figure, not a historical one, but the argument was really about who belongs in these stories. Nolan's answer seems to be: whoever serves the story best.
Is this film trying to say something about our world?
Damon suggests it's not a lecture—it's a conversation. The themes are there: the horrors of war, the idea of treating others as you'd want to be treated. But Nolan trusts the audience to find their own meaning.