Christopher Nolan: The Interview

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You're listening to Comedy Central.

Jon Stewart (1:15)

Welcome back to The Daily Show, my guests tonight. Oscar-winning director, Oscar-winning writer and producer.

Jon Stewart (1:22)

His new film is called The Odyssey. Please welcome Christopher Nolan.

Thank you for joining us. Let me begin by saying this. Holy shit.

I saw this on Sunday. Thank you very much. Your people set up a lovely screening. It's a staggering work. Just remarkable. To the point where, you know, I feel like I know a lot of the tricks. I don't know how you did it. I honestly don't. That's all practical, right? Those are real boats. That's real water. This is not...

Christopher Nolan (2:16)

Yeah. Real boats, real water.

It's The Odyssey. I wanted to take the audience on this incredible journey. And for me, I mean, we use every trick in the book, certainly, but the basis of it is to get the actors, get Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Hathaway, everybody, Rob Pattinson, get them out there in the world, find locations, real locations, get a real boat, you know, get out there...

Jon Stewart (2:43)

Get a real Cyclops.

Christopher Nolan (2:45)

Get a real Cyclops. As close as we could, yep, yep, exactly.

Jon Stewart (2:50)

What made you decide to take on this epic work?

Christopher Nolan (2:57)

Well, coming out of my last film, Oppenheimer, had way more success than I think we had any right to expect. And that gives you an opportunity to get something made that you might not otherwise be able to get made.

Jon Stewart (3:11)

You would have had trouble, Christopher Nolan, after everything, after Interstellar, after Inception, after Memento, after Batman, you would have had trouble selling that had it not been for Oppenheimer?

Christopher Nolan (3:23)

I think it helped that it was very successful.

Jon Stewart (3:27)

You think the Oscar thing helped?

Christopher Nolan (3:28)

I think the Oscar thing helped. I think it all helped to go to the studio and say, because being The Odyssey, it needs a massive budget, it needs a massive cast, it needs a lot. So you're asking a lot of the studio, you're asking a lot of the cast and everybody. You know, I like to say it was a very hard movie, but hard for all the right reasons. You know, it's The Odyssey. It should be hard.

Jon Stewart (3:50)

It shows up on screen. I mean, all of it shows up on screen. Thank you. Someone was telling me that you actually completed it ahead of schedule, as you have with all of your movies, and under budget.

Christopher Nolan (4:01)

Yes.

Jon Stewart (4:03)

Never happened.

Jon Stewart (4:04)

It was never happened.

Jon Stewart (4:07)

I mean, it just.

Christopher Nolan (4:12)

Well, I mean, the reality is, you know, we went in at 100 days, and by day 91, we couldn't have taken another step. So we finished, we finished the right.

Jon Stewart (4:23)

You were done.

Christopher Nolan (4:24)

We were done. Everybody was done. I mean, people were just exhausted. Right. They'd been through it. And so, you know, it took the right time to make the film. We had enough time to make it. We had the resources to make it.

Jon Stewart (4:34)

There is now, I am obviously, I don't want to say an expert in mythology and Greek literature. Some would say.

But some of our writers are experts, and so when we walked out, I walked out with someone who has actually studied those texts in Greek, and I was looking at them, like, because for me, I was utterly absorbed and transformed by the powerful storytelling and the epic nature of it and all those things, but this is a person that, to be frank, would probably be a bit of a pain in the ass to watch The Odyssey with. Loved it.