Christopher Nolan, director: We need to take risks

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1:30is fire. We need healing. We need trust. These companies don't really, they don't care what governments do. This is a war. The first thing that we want is the war to end. For this interview, I met Oscar-winning filmmaker Sir Christopher Nolan in central London. The 55-year-old, whose directing credits include Inception, Interstellar and Oppenheimer, is widely considered one of the 21st century's most influential filmmakers. Born in London in 1970, his career began in the mid-1990s when he would proofread scripts, operate cameras and direct for corporate information films. Barely a decade later, he was chosen to direct Christian Bale as Batman in the critically acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy, with his vision for the superhero ultimately transforming the wider genre on the big screen.

2:23A string of blockbusters followed, making him one of the highest-grossing directors of all time, and he was later knighted in 2024 for his services to film. He's now releasing his latest project, The Odyssey, an ambitious adaptation of Homer's ancient Greek story, starring a Hollywood A-list cast, including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and Zendaya. In the story, and I think this is why it sustains, even though some of the values of it are obviously archaic and outdated. But the story movements, the motifs, the ways in which human beings interact, they do have this timeless quality and you can look at them through a modern lens.

3:06And I find that I come away from it with more of an appreciation of the poem, thinking that, yeah, it does sustain those levels of interpretation. There is a timeless quality to it. You can find the modern world in it. Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Sir Christopher Nolan. We met three years ago, just ahead of the release of Oppenheim, and that was a film about kind of one of the most consequential figures of the 20th century. You've now taken on one of the most consequential works of literature of all time. Is it the film that you always were itching to make? I mean yeah it's I've had a couple of images for this film I mean in particular this idea of the Trojan horse I was trying to show it with fresh eyes that's been in my head for about 20 years because I was I was briefly attached to direct the film Troy for Warner Brothers so that was more than 20 years ago yes slightly more than 20 years ago yeah a while ago and uh I was on it long enough to have to figure out okay how would I approach the Trojan horse because even though it was based on the Iliad, David Benioff, the screenwriter, had included the horse in there.

4:19And so I had this idea. Even back then, were you thinking no wheels? I was. The actual image of it, half buried in the sand, about to be swept away by the waves, that was the thing that came to me. Because, of course, you're showing this to an audience who all, you know, we all know it's stuff with Greeks. So how do we make it seem credible that the Trojans would discover it and drag it into their city? So that image has been with me for 20 years and I finally got to do it. But I mean, you're looking for a gap in movies. You're looking for a gap in the culture. And for whatever reason, the Odyssey, that foundational tale that we all kind of know so well, has never been told in modern film.

5:00And before we get onto the film proper, clearly Oppenheimer was such a huge success, critically, commercially, winning all those Oscars. When you, as even a director of your stature, when you've done that and then you're approaching your next film, do you have a bit of trepidation? Do you feel the pressure of, oh, my goodness, I'm worried it's not going to be as good? Do you feel that pressure? You do. You have ways of coping with it. My son walked into my office while I was writing on The Odyssey and said, you know, where are your Oscars? He'd been away, you know, for the whole time. and I said to him very seriously, I said, well, I'm trying to write a new project and if I've got Oscars sitting there on the shelf, think about how daunting that'd be, whatever.

5:46And he looked at me and said, but you didn't win for writing. So you moved the Oscars, though, while you were writing it, put them somewhere else. Exactly. Talked them out of sight. I mean, yeah, you can't really think about what's come before. Every film, you're trying to build on what you've learned and move into something different and challenge yourself. But for the audience, every film is a unique thing, a unique story. So you really have to try and view it that way. I think it's very dangerous as a director to start looking at a career or a continuity or that. I really try to just dive into a story and spend a couple of years working on that.

6:22And is your film combining the popularity of the superhero with one of the greats of classical literature? I almost wonder whether you're smuggling some high art in through a medium that is just so accessible and a kind of story that is so accessible in popular culture now. I mean, in a way, I don't really think of it so much as smuggling, though, because when you go to Homer, you know, it's a very, very crowd-pleasing story. It's popcorn stuff. I mean, that's the joy of it. And that's why it's endured for this long. But, of course, the other reason it's endured for 3 ,000 years is it's primal and resonant.

6:57You know, there are things happening in that story that touch us all as human beings. And that's why culture after culture, generation after generation for thousands of years have reinterpreted and adapted it and, you know, been entertained by it. And Mary Beard said she hoped it was going to have the Wuthering Heights effect, that which when Emerald Fennell's film came out and everyone, all these people bought the book and sales rocketed of that book. She's hoping the same is going to happen for Homer. Well, fingers crossed. I mean, it's a great story. So, yeah, I could see that happening. I mean, the great fun thing about cinema is it brings people together.

7:33It travels the world. You know, in The Odyssey, it's a very international story. It just has a lot of appeal in a lot of different ways. It's kind of all these different wonderful stories in one. I mean, it's this homecoming story, but it's also a coming-of-age story. You know, Tom Holland's character of Telemachus, coming-of-age, absent his father that he doesn't remember. It's this incredible love story between Matt Damon's Odysseus and Anne Hathaway's Penelope, but it's also about war and horror and fantasy and all of these very, very, I think, really exciting, really human things. And that did feel very timely, and when I watched it, I don't know the poem well enough to know whether this was a modern slant on it, but, for example, I hadn't appreciated that certainly so moving that Odysseus is thinking about the kind of horror of war and kind of reflecting on the guilt of his role in it.

8:30And I don't know whether that's in the original, but it felt very timely for now that we are thinking. You made a film about Oppenheimer, who had this very key role in potentially us all being able to kill the whole of the planet. and now you've moved on to a man who is really the story of that war and the struggle to come home. But told with flashbacks of quite how horrific that experience is of war. It feels timely. I think it's eternal and therefore timely. And I think that is the appeal of Homer. And the fascinating thing with the Homeric epics, whether you look at the Iliad or the Odyssey, is you take something like in the Iliad with Priam, kissing the hands of Achilles, the man who's murdered his son, and saying, I have to kiss the hands of the man who murdered my son because it has to be done.

9:20In other words, that's how I move forward. You come to that thinking that feels foreign, an alien, and of another time, and then suddenly it becomes relevant. Suddenly you realize, no, we're still living in that world. Nothing's changed. And these things are important, and that is how society moves on. Those are the kind of things we're dealing with. And in the Odyssey, the entire thing is the aftermath. of the Trojan War. And I think as you adapt it, you can't escape the fact that it's not just that that's an interesting adventure or that's an interesting period of time to talk about. There's a reason that it's the aftermath of the Trojan War.

9:58And even though Homer is not explicit in some of the ways that with a modern telling, we might try to tease out certain ideas. There are these fundamental truths. There are these fundamental questions that affect us all as human beings. and the aftermath of war is obviously a huge part of it. And when you're making a film like this, do you think about the modern relevance? Do you think about how it will be received by modern audiences and whether it is picking up something about our culture? No, I don't. I try not to be didactic or too over-analytical in my writing process. I try to just write a story and characters that excite the movement.

10:39But I also trust that if done right, you know that process will lead to something that does reflect the world we live in because that's the world i live in you know and i think if you're sincere and you're honest with yourself as you're writing about what frightens you what moves you what do you care about hopefully you're not going to be so far away from you know the rest of the audience's concerns and tell me about because the law of zeus is a phrase that is used a lot yeah in the movie that is about hospitality isn't it It's about treating all strangers as guests. Yes, it's a concept called Xenia.

11:15I didn't use the term in the film because I thought it would be one more confusing name. We refer to it as Zeus's law, the law of Zeus. And it's essentially a golden rule. It says, you know, treat others as you would be treated. And in their world, it had a theological underpinning, which was God's walk amongst us. You may appear to be a humble beggar, but you could be a god in disguise. and so I have to treat you well. And that's the glue that holds this civilization together. In a way, it defines a civilization, because if you think about it very clearly back in the Bronze Age, if you leave your home for more than a day or two, you are by definition entirely at the mercy of the people you meet, of strangers, for food, clothing, shelter, everything.

12:02And so that code was necessary for society to be able to function in any way. And once again, you find these things at home, you approach these things as the values of another time. They seem a little alien, a little foreign, until suddenly, as you're unpacking it all, you're adapting it, you realise nothing has changed. And we are absolutely as dependent on that as we ever have been. And when that principle of respecting others is ignored or abused, things fall apart.

12:33You're listening to The Interview from the BBC World Service.

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13:46This is my second interview with Christopher Nolan, which made the hellos more relaxed this time round. The last time we met was ahead of the release of his movie Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy, about the theoretical physicist who helped develop the nuclear bomb. It went on to sweep the board at the Oscars in 2024, and so I couldn't help wondering this time whether the acclaimed director was feeling the pressure to deliver again or whether success is baked in when it comes to Nolan movies. He was being ferried between interviews in different rooms in a swanky London hotel, as is often the case during these publicity blitzes ahead of a film launch, but he seemed relaxed and happy to spend time with the BBC.

14:27He's a thoughtful interviewee, serious about his craft, but also quick to smile if something tickles him. OK, let's return to my conversation with Sir Christopher Nolan. Presumably, you've taken this text and other ways of interpreting it, and you have, of course, updated it in many ways, not least from a kind of female perspective. But obviously, in the original poem, there are lots of things. Odysseus is unfaithful all the way through his journey home. That would not go down well with a modern audience, I don't think. Equally, although Penelope is a key character, it feels to me like you've given her even more agency.

15:00did you think about that side of things that there are there are things to modern taste be it the you know frankly sexism that might have been around as a result of that patriarchal society back in the day that that were obviously going to be updated i mean yes of course but it's also yeah writing with modern values writing for a modern audience yeah i mean you bring certain truths and values that we respect but i think the thing about homer is it's not so much you're just sort of ignoring parts of it as you're tending to look at them more for the symbolic value. And you have iconography, you have symbolism in the poem that resonates differently to different cultures and different times.

15:40And so, yeah, it's in a way the primal and simple nature of the way that the poem works. It does allow for that interpretation. And indeed, you know, even for translators, you know, working today, you know, whether you're talking about something like Edmund Wilson or whatever, I mean, you have different translators who are finding ways to bring this permit to the 21st century, to look at it, whilst respecting the language and the meter and all these kind of things. I don't have any of that trouble. I'm adapting. I'm able to do whatever I want with it, really. I'm not bound by the language. I'm working beyond the language.

16:16I'm just looking at the story. And in the story, and I think this is why it sustains, even though some of the values of it are obviously archaic and outdated. But the story movements, the motifs, the ways in which human beings interact, they do have this timeless quality. And you can look at them through a modern lens. And knowing that you're going to work with, you know, Anne Hathaway, you know, playing Penelope, you know there are going to be fascinating layers, fascinating ambiguities to the situation. And I find that I come away from it with more of an appreciation of the poem, thinking that, yeah, it does sustain those levels of interpretation.

16:55There is a timeless quality to it. You can find the modern world in it. And you mentioned Anne Hathaway. Clearly, you were casting some of the most well-known mythological characters of all time. These are names that we know, Odysseus, Penelope, Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships, all of those. When you're thinking about it, what's the way you go about it? Why Matt Damon? Why Zendaya? Why, I don't know, Tom Holland? Why Anne Hathaway? Why Lupita Ngoy? How do you make those decisions? I don't think about actors when I'm writing. And the reason for that is if you write to an actor with an actor in mind, you're writing something you've already seen them do by definition and you're tending to limit the character somehow.

17:39What I want to do is discover the characters through the writing process, take them as far as they can go, and then look at it and go, okay, who could take on this role? And present them with a challenge. We've talked a lot previously, and I've read a lot about you, shooting in reality as much as you can. So Matt Damon, Lash to the Mask, they're all on ships. That gives you a kind of reality, which is really important to you and important to the screen. You're also shooting, this is the first feature film on IMAX, which is a big deal. Are these things that you are doing because clearly you value the craft of filmmaking?

18:13Are you, in a sense, seeing yourself, quite rightly, I would say, but you are one of the people who potentially can save cinema, to use that cliche, that actually you are a director who draws people to the cinema as opposed to watching things on screens? And is that part of that? Is that part of your thinking when you're making a film like this? I mean, other than the part about saving cinema, because I don't think cinema needs saving, I think people love to go to the movies. We all love to go to the movies. And they're not going as much as they were. Well, yes and no. I mean, there are a lot of ways of approaching that conversation from a business point of view, not least of which is it's the ultimate sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

18:51I've worked in films for 30 years, and all I've ever heard is about how cinema's dying and TV's great and all the rest. And I could certainly say, you know, I'm president of the Directors Guild of America, and right now, you know, feature films, the cinema is doing very well, and TV is very, very challenged. There's been a huge contraction in our industry, and a lot of our members are unemployed, and that's been a 10-year contraction in the television market. But Donna Langley said about you, the president of the head of Universal, effectively she said you're someone who can guarantee people coming in, which is why they back you, because they know that if they back a Christopher Nolan film, there'll be a buzz around it, and people will want to go and watch it on the big screen.

19:31Well, I mean, that's great of her to say, and that's terrific and everything. It's true though, isn't it? I think there are a lot of different ways to interest people in coming to the movies. And you see films, I mean, this summer you've seen films like Back Rooms and Obsession, that are made by young, very young filmmakers, connecting with their audience, getting young people into cinemas. I mean, our biggest segment of viewers who come to the movies is young people in their 20s. And it always has been. I think ever since the 1950s, when television came along, there's been this tendency in the media to sort of proclaim, you know, the death of movies and everything.

20:09And I think really what happens is we're in a cyclical business and certain tropes get stale. You know, you're always looking for, OK, where's the new generation of filmmakers? Where are the new voices, the new stories coming in? What I hope to do in the middle of all that is try and find a story that I can command the resources for, use my opportunity to make a film that I haven't made before, and hopefully bring something fresh to the audience. When Hollywood makes a mistake, it's always the same mistake, which is to forget how much people want something new, how much they want something they haven't seen before that they don't know that they want.

20:45because obviously it's easy to analyze things that have worked in the past and kind of follow that path. But the way I like to term it is the biggest risk in motion pictures is to not take a risk. You have to be putting it out there and offering people something new and that's what will get them out of their houses. And I absolutely loved Jason and the Argonauts when I was a child. Obsessed with it, had the VHS. Me and my brother watched it the whole time. And I suppose in a way that wasn't very realistic, but it was absolutely incredible and kept us going. you are telling a not that same story but a story along those lines there's the clashing rocks which appear and various things and you're telling it in a very real way yeah and that IMAX thing I wonder do you think with IMAX do you see the future where people follow you and we'll start using IMAX too and we'll build more IMAX cinemas and it will become the thing because there are certain things I don't know 3D glasses for example we were all told we watched films in 3D a few years ago and obviously that went by the wayside.

21:44Do you see the IMAX rather like Technicolor was, that it's the frontier of cinema that others will feel they have to follow? Yeah, I mean, in a way, but not necessarily in the specifics. It's not necessarily as rigid as, for example, everyone being told you've got to wear 3D glasses for the rest of your life or whatever. The thing about IMAX as a brand and as a format is it's always stood for the highest quality imaging format. It was invented right before I was born, 1969. It's been around with us a long time, but it was used for documentaries. It wasn't used for Hollywood filmmaking. So I'd wanted, since I was a kid, to make films in this way.

22:21And I started using their equipment on The Dark Knight, where we shot the action sequences, the introduction of the Joker, the bank heist at the beginning, the truck flip, you know, all this sort of stuff. We did all those sequences on IMAX film. It was really, really cool, really fun, in a great way to work on a bigger canvas. What we hadn't been able to do is the dialogue scenes, the intimate scenes, because the cameras are incredibly loud. With the Odyssey, we have, working with IMAX, who made a blimping system, a way of quietening the camera. So we were able to shoot all the dialogue that way.

22:53Then we can do the whole film in IMAX. It's the first time it's been done. And I'm very excited to have been part of sort of driving that evolution in their technology, so there's more film-friendly, more Hollywood film-friendly. And I'd love to see what other filmmakers do with it. I mean, it was such a thrill for me to see Ryan Coogler Sinners shooting on IMAX and shooting, you know, in the way that he'd seen The Dark Knight, you know, when he was a kid and whatever, and, you know, being inspired by that and really wanted to get his hands on those cameras too. And for me, that's the fun thing is to think about, okay, what's the next generation of filmmakers?

23:25What are other filmmakers going to do with this technology? You know, if you think about movies in the home, entertainment in the home, you know, It's a continual technical progression. Screens have gotten bigger, clearer, the picture gets better, the sound gets better and everything. Theatres have to keep up, but they have to be ahead of that. We have to be offering people a reason to get out of the house. One of the reasons I shoot on celluloid film is it's the best analogy for the way the eye sees that's ever been created. So if you want naturalism, if you want to show somebody the way the world looks, celluloid film is the way to do it.

24:00In particular, IMAX films are very sharp, with its huge negative and all the rest. It's a really beautiful medium. And it's something that you'll never have in your house. No one's going to be putting 70 mil projectors in the living room. I mean, I do have one at home. I was going to say, do you have an enormous TV? How big is your TV? I've got a fairly big TV, but I have a screening room with film projectors as well. And that's, you know, that's the real treat. But now I have a great, you know, 4K TV and all the rest. I mean, that's the thing. I watch an enormous amount of TV and I watch a lot of films.

24:31at home and being able to access film history the way we can. People, you know, 50 years ago couldn't. I mean, it's a huge privilege. It's really pretty wonderful. None of that really detracts from the experience of going to the movies, sitting with an audience and experiencing a story together. There's something very, very unique about the combination of the subjective camera view that you get when you watch a movie in the cinema and you're immersed the way you are when you read a novel, you know, you're sort of fully subjectively immersed. But unlike any other medium, you're also sharing it with an audience, the way you do in the theatre.

25:09So it's that combination. It's very, very unique. There's no other medium that gives you that. And that's the power of it. And that's why, you know, it's just always going to be, you know, a great way to be entertained and a great way to receive stories. Christopher Nolan, thank you so much. Thank you. One day I'd like to come to your cinema and watch back-to-back Jason and the Argonauts and then the Odyssey. That would be a good evening, wouldn't it? That would be fabulous.

25:34Thank you for listening to The Interview. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can find many more episodes of The Interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including ones with fellow Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro, tennis champion Martina Navratilova, and the legendary musician Sir Paul McCartney. Until the next time, bye for now.