Why Tom Holland Panicked on the Set of Christopher Nolan’s 'The Odyssey'

Walking onto a Christopher Nolan set is terrifying enough, but Tom Holland spent his entire first day on The Odyssey convinced the visionary director absolutely hated his acting.

In a new interview with Fandango ahead of the film's massive July 17 theatrical release, the Spider-Man star opened up about what he called "one of the most daunting experiences" of his career. Holland plays Telemachus in the star-studded epic, and his very first day on set required shooting one of the most intensely emotional and critical scenes in his character's entire arc.

The Constant Cuts and the Spiral

The trouble started almost immediately. Within minutes of rolling, Nolan repeatedly called "cut." Over and over again, just a few minutes into the performance, the director would halt the scene.

Holland quickly began to spiral, terrified that his emotional delivery wasn't landing. In a state of pure panic, he turned to his co-star and real-life friend Jon Bernthal (who plays Menelaus) in utter confusion.

"I was with Jon, I'm like, 'Why does he keep cutting? Why does he keep doing that?'" Holland recalled. "And in my head, I'm like, 'Does he not like what we're doing? Like, what is happening?'"

The 3-Minute IMAX Technical Nightmare

As it turns out, the constant interruptions had absolutely zero to do with Holland’s acting—and everything to do with groundbreaking movie technology.

The Odyssey is making cinematic history as the first narrative feature film to be shot entirely on IMAX 65mm film cameras. What Holland didn't realize going into day one is a major technical limitation of the format: a standard IMAX film magazine can only hold about three minutes of footage before it completely runs out and needs to be reloaded by the crew.

Because Nolan was utilizing custom, ultra-quiet IMAX rigs to shoot dialogue-heavy intimate scenes, he had to constantly stop down the production to swap out the physical film rolls.

Thankfully, stunt coordinator George Cottle finally pulled a sweating Holland aside to clue him in on how the cameras worked. "I was like, 'Oh, thank God,'" Holland laughed. "I thought I was totally s******* the bed in this scene."

It’s a hilarious reminder that even a massive Marvel superstar can get completely humbled by a 200-pound piece of standard Hollywood cinema history.

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Over to You!

Are you catching The Odyssey in a true 70mm IMAX theater when it drops on July 17? Let us know if you would have panicked in Tom's shoes in the comments below!