Tom Holland has seen Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, and he's not hiding his enthusiasm.
In a new interview with GQ, the Spider-Man star called the film an "absolute masterpiece" and marveled at Nolan's commitment to practical effects. Holland said he found himself watching certain sequences and thinking, "That has to be CG"—only to learn from Nolan that it was all done in-camera.
"There were certain sequences in the movie where I'm watching it and I'm just sort of thinking like, 'How on earth has he done that? That has to be CG,'" Holland said. "And then after the movie asking him, 'That was definitely CG, right?' And he's like, 'No, no, no, that's all in camera effects. Very planned, very prepared.'"
This is classic Nolan—the director who crashed a real plane for Tenet, who flipped an actual semi-truck for The Dark Knight, who built rotating hallway sets for Inception. The man simply does not believe in CGI when he can blow something up for real.
What's particularly interesting is Holland's description of the film as both an "intricate and heartfelt story" and an "insane action movie." That balance is Nolan's signature—cerebral spectacle, emotional weight wrapped in jaw-dropping set pieces. If The Odyssey pulls that off with Homer's ancient epic, it could be something special.
Holland also revealed that he learned a lot from working with Matt Damon, which makes sense—Damon has been navigating blockbuster and prestige projects for decades. The cast also includes Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong'o, and Charlize Theron, which is the kind of stacked ensemble Nolan always assembles.
But the most telling part of the interview was Holland's commitment to theatrical cinema. He said he's focusing the next 10 years of his career on building relationships with studios that prioritize theatrical releases. "I am a real advocate for theatrical and the cinema and the communal experience of sitting in a dark room and being entertained," he said.
That's a remarkable statement from one of the biggest young stars in the world. Holland could do streaming movies and rake in guaranteed paydays. Instead, he's explicitly committing to theatrical—a vote of confidence that theaters desperately need.
The Odyssey hits theaters July 17. If Holland's reaction is anything to go by, Nolan has delivered another must-see big-screen experience.
In Hollywood, nobody knows anything—except that Christopher Nolan still knows how to blow minds with practical effects.
