Watch: A Fascinating Philosophical Interview with Christopher Nolan
by Alex Billington
August 3, 2026
Source: Twitter
“They’re judging it relative to the overall cultural flow of the movement of cinema and the conventions of cinema.” Now that you’ve seen it, learn more about the choices writer / director Christopher Nolan made adapting The Odyssey for the big screen in this excellent interview. For many years, Nolan was famous for never doing allowing any online interviews – only magazines & newspapers. All that has changed and he has been front and center in the promo campaigns for his last two movies Oppenheimer and The Odyssey. This interview has gone viral online and it’s entirely worth a watch. Yiyang Zhuge is a Chinese political theorist & translator who teaches at Brandeis University, and also a PhD Candidate at Boston College. She conducted an interview with Nolan for the Chinese release of The Odyssey and all 17 minutes of this conversation are worth listening to – view the full video below. I love how she pushes back at Nolan, I dig her philosophical questions about language, being the “bard for a civilization at dusk” (yes he definitely is), and Christianizing this Ancient Greek story. And I also dig Nolan’s very thoughtful answers to these ideas. Both are engaging in this conversation in an intellectual way and it’s rare we ever see interviews this good for Hollywood movies.
View more featurettes: this “On Set” promo, Nolan’s 60 Minutes interview, about Ludwig Göransson’s score. You can watch the stunning first trailer for Nolan’s The Odyssey movie right here + the second trailer here.
The Odyssey follows Odysseus (Matt Damon), the legendary Greek king of Ithaca, on his perilous journey home after the Trojan War. Depicting encounters with mythical beings such as the Cyclops Polyphemus, the Sirens, and the witch-goddess Circe, culminating in his long-awaited reunion with his wife, Penelope. The Odyssey is directed by the acclaimed, Oscar-winning British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, director of the movies Following, Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet, and Oppenheimer previously. The screenplay is also by Christopher Nolan, adapted from the iconic ancient Greek epic poem Odyssey attributed to Homer. With cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema, and music composed by Ludwig Göransson. It’s produced by Emma Thomas & Christopher Nolan through their own company Syncopy. Universal Pictures will release Nolan’s The Odyssey in theaters worldwide starting on July 17th, 2026 this summer. It’s playing everywhere now.
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