Himesh Patel: ‘The Odyssey’ is ‘everyone’s story to own and to connect to’

Zachary Lee: To start, I was reading that Christoper Nolan didn’t want to use artificial hair for Odysseus’ beard, so Matt had to grow it out for a whole year. Did you have any tips to offer him?
Himesh Patel: [Laughs] It’s one of those things where people say “nice beard,” but it’s the least effort of everything I’ve done in my life. The hair is just coming out of my face. What’s interesting, though, is that because we were shooting chronologically, I let my beard grow out. So if you look at the beard on the first day of the shoot in Morocco to the last day on the backlot in L.A., it was absurd to note the difference.

ZL: You had shared that in the translation you’re reading, Eurylochus is mentioned only by name once. In addition to the gift of Chris’s script, was there anything else you were drawing from when embodying him?
HP: I had a look at The Iliad as well, not necessarily for character details, but as an overview so that I knew what my character experienced. It was important to trace what exactly gets eroded between him and Odysseus as the story goes on. There’s a very particular relationship he has with Odysseus when they set off on their journey that ends in a different place that was interesting to explore.

ZL: In the larger lore, Eurylochus is Odysseus' brother-in-law. I’m not sure if that familial connection was something you were trying to channel?
HP: Yeah, that aspect came from Stephen Fry, shout out to him and his read of The Odyssey. I had a read of that, and it says in the beginning that Eurylochus was Odysseus' brother-in-law. It’s not something I discussed with Matt, but it's interesting to consider. 

ZL: What I appreciated about Eurylochus was the way his doubt was always emanating from a foundation of love and care for his men. What was your entry point into Eurylochus’ doubt? 

HP: The entry point for me, and I don't think this is in the movie necessarily—there’s just so much in this film that even a cutaway to someone might cost Chris something somewhere else down the line—but there was a moment where just before the crew hits land, Matt is on the boat playing with his pin gifted to him by Athena.

I sat off camera watching him, and that was the moment when Eurylochus goes, “What is that?” Obviously, he’s known Odysseus has had the pin the whole time, but there’s something about the way Odysseus was looking at it, the deep contemplation with which he's connecting to this thing. That was the jump-off point for me into Eurylochus as a character. There’s that line where he says to Odysseus, “You know how many times I’ve heard you talking and praying to Athena?” So he’s clearly been tracking his brother-in-law and his movements, taking note of where faith and leadership are failing.

ZL: It’s making me think about the line where on Circe’s island, Eurylochus point-blank tells Odysseus “We think you should stay.”
HP: That is a big turning point, post the Laestrygonians. What always strikes me is that the boat that comes up on shore is just the people there and those on the main boat. They’ve barely got anyone left. They set off with hundreds of men.

What I love about that sequence is that it’s a moment where Eurylochus is left with no choice. It’s a great moment to shoot, and an example of Matt’s ability to be still and yet give so much. His line is, “Is this a mutiny?” and I love that my response is, “That’s up to you.” I think that captures Eurylochus's headspace and heart in that moment. “I don't want to be doing this,” he seems to say, “You’ve left me in this position.”

In terms of the direction for that moment, Chris trusts his actors so much that he kind of leaves you alone. Some of the guys have been telling this story about Robert Pattinson asking him a question at some point, and Chris goes, “Well, that's your department, mate.” He cast us for a reason, and that confidence means a lot. It’s kind of heartening when he says “Let’s go for another (take),” without telling you exactly what it is he's looking for.

ZL: I’ve heard producer Emma Thomas say that The Odyssey is about six or seven movies in one and that they’ve made each of those movies before; this is just the first time that they’ve all done all of those movies at once. You’ve had the privilege of working with Chris, and I’m wondering if you saw shades of Tenet in this.
HP: I’ll be honest that at the moment, you’re just thinking about what’s in front of you. But in terms of The Odyssey being an amalgamation of his work, I was thinking of that to some degree. Not least with the scale of the thing, but also it's a non-linear story in its original form. So it's kind of perfect for him and connects with Tenet in terms of what that movie is doing with time in some way, although they are very different beasts.

ZL: This may just be my projection, but everything with Eurylochus’ ring felt very Inception-coded.
HP: I love that. The ring was a touchpoint for me emotionally for Eurylochus’ journey, perhaps in the same way as Dom Cobb’s totem was for Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in Inception. When Eurylochus gets Elpenor’s ring, it stays with him. It acts as a way to remember who Elpenor was; significantly, he chose to keep it on. 

ZL: As horrific as it was, I find Circe’s island sequence to be one of the film’s standout set pieces. Can you speak more to the mechanics of filming that body horror sequence, from the food you were eating to the practical effects used?
HP: We didn't really know what to expect. As with many things in this movie, you have what's on the page, but exactly what the space is going to look like and how Chris wants it executed is, “you wait and see until you get there on the day.” The only thing I knew was that I was not going to have lunch that day.”

The food was this broth that they made for us, and because I don’t eat meat, mine had bits of tofu. Then they had these contraptions that were made with this very impenetrable, chewy stuff. It really looks like we're stretching the food when we’re eating.

The amazing thing is that everything in that sequence is all in-camera trickery. None of it is CGI. The kind of engineering and technology to make that scene happen has been available for 40-50 years or so, but we’ve just lost sight of it when CGI came along. It’s effective, scary, and disturbing even on the day when you're there. It was one of those many moments throughout this entire shoot where I was like, "We're making a movie. It’s so cool that we were doing it this way.”

ZL: That’s encouraging to hear because I imagine, as wonderful as Samantha Morton is, it can be a lot to endure hands on the face for that long.
HP: [Laughs] No, but she was great. I immediately trusted her. I told her, “Get in there and do what you need to do; I don't mind.” She’s so lovely, and after every take, she’d say, “Are you okay? I’m so sorry.” I was like, “I was fine; this is hilarious.”

ZL: On the note of casting, it meant a lot to see actors like you and Will Yun Lee take on roles in this film. How does it feel to be a part of a multinational cast and take a character like Eurylochus and situate it in your own cultural, historical context?
HP: I'm just so full of admiration for Chris for casting the movie this way. He understands the scale and weight of The Odyssey, what it means to people around the world, and he wanted to cast the movie—I assume—to reflect that. There'll be other stories like Oppenheimer where it's a historical biopic, and so the casting has to be what it is, but this is a mythological story. It's an open door and opportunity for him to work with actors like Lupita Nyong'o, for example. I think at the end of the day, it's a really thrilling mythological story that has been ours for 3,000 years, and it's everyone's story to own and to connect to.

ZL: It made me think about Penelope's line, where she says “All we know about the world is from travelers’ tales.” That touches on how immigration and migration make the world richer and more beautiful because of these different perspectives.
HP: Yes, and the fact that the movie starts with Travis Scott as the bard is critical. What you realize is how stories were told back then because they didn't have writing. So the stories would get told by someone, and it's every single different bard who would do that, and it was their interpretation of it. The primary text we have is just someone's or some group of people's interpretation of that story. This is Chris's interpretation of that story. He's the bard in this situation—he is telling it and reflecting the world how he would like it to be, which is what's beautiful about it.

ZL: I didn’t realize how much the film is about Zeus’ Law, and it’s made me realize that this is a film that’s really about hospitality.
HP: Yeah, it's that bigger idea of, “How do we treat people? How do we treat people from afar? How do we treat strangers? And what happens if we break that law? What does that do to our souls?” Especially on a collective level, obviously, this is a film that is a mediation of what breaking this law does to one man, but the film is saying so much about us as a species and what happens when we lose our humanity.

ZL: To end with an exploration of the technical aspects, I know that the IMAX 70MM cameras were such a physical presence on set. They film 2.5 minutes, so I’m curious what that does for you as an actor if you’re filming a long scene that has to be broken up.
HP: You just have to be mindful of it and the way that you perform in terms of the pace of the thing. So a scene can be what it is, but you have to try and get it within the two and a half minutes if you can. There’s that scene where we shot in Greece where a guy’s on his knees. We ran a take, and then Chris asked how long was left in the mag and whether we had enough for another take. Emily Amos, the “A” camera second assistant, said, “If it runs to that, we won't have enough time,” and started offering solutions. Then Chris said, "Don't worry about it,” and he just turned around to the three of us in the scene and went, “Faster, faster, faster.” It made the scene better, so actually, sometimes those limitations can be a real boost.