Robert Pattinson admits he briefly questioned Matt Damon’s sanity while filming Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” after hearing unexplained howling coming from the trailer next door. Speaking alongside castmates in a promotional interview with MTV U.K. this week, Pattinson described his confusion at the noises, which turned out to be Damon deliberately straining his voice to sound older for his role as a battle-worn Odysseus.
“Matt was in the trailer next to me, and he was making these noises,” Pattinson recalled. “He is such a nice guy… I thought he was on the phone, and I thought he was a complete psycho.” Costar Tom Holland confirmed he had heard the same commotion. Pattinson described the sound as relentless: “He was just screaming and screaming and screaming. I thought he was having a really bad toilet experience.” Only later did he learn the truth. “He was just blowing his voice out just to sound older,” Pattinson said, adding with a laugh, “you’re taking years off your life by doing this.”
Damon, 55, plays the title role of Odysseus, the Greek king whose two-decade journey home from the Trojan War forms the backbone of Homer’s epic. Pattinson plays Antinous, the film’s chief antagonist, who spends the story pursuing Odysseus’s wife Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway, in a bid to seize the throne. To sharpen his physical transformation for the role, Damon has said he trimmed his weight down to 167 pounds, telling the “New Heights” podcast that Nolan wanted him “lean but strong.”
Asked about the trailer incident afterward on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” Damon leaned into the joke rather than deny it, quipping that he “could’ve been getting murdered in there” for all his neighbors knew. The exchange has circulated widely as the cast, which also includes newlyweds Zendaya and Tom Holland, makes the rounds promoting the film ahead of its wide theatrical release this week.
Nolan’s adaptation marks one of the starrier ensemble casts of his career and has drawn attention both for its scale and for pointed remarks from the director addressing early criticism of the project from some conservative commentators. For Pattinson, though, the lasting takeaway from the shoot was simpler: even a famously easygoing collaborator can sound alarming through a thin trailer wall when he is fully committed to the part.
