Inside Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey': How Samantha Morton Became Circe

Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's "The Odyssey" cast Samantha Morton as the witch Circe because, in casting director John Papsidera's words, "She's a brave performer."

Papsidera, who has cast every Nolan project since 2000's "Memento," revealed the film's creative process at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival during a crafts panel, joined by production designer Ruth De Jong and costume designer Ellen Mirojnick.

How did Matt Damon become Odysseus?

Papsidera said he learned the project was Nolan's take on Homer only when he read the script. "I don't get any heads-up," he said. "He loved to give me a pop quiz: 'Who do you think? What do you think?' And that's how the process began."

Nolan wanted Odysseus to be American. "We talked about the idea that he's a worker among workers, an everyman," Papsidera said.

The search coalesced around Matt Damon. "What he had done in 'Oppenheimer' was really special in that film," Papsidera said of the choice, calling it "different for Matt."

In Homer's poem, Circe is a temptress who toys with soldiers. In Nolan's version, she transforms Odysseus' men into pigs.

On casting Morton, Papsidera explained: "She appears one way and then turns into something else; that's the witchlike quality of her." He added that Nolan "sparked to it because he's always been a fan of Samantha. You just felt the sense that she was going to invent something remarkable for that chapter — something interesting, scary and still showing human vulnerability in the beginning."

Where was Circe's hut built?

De Jong and Nolan scouted locations worldwide. A fifth-century castle in Italy, perched approximately 1,030 feet above sea level, became Ithaca. The beaches of Essaouira, on Morocco's Atlantic coast, served as the Trojan horse discovery site and Odysseus's boat launch.

Troy was the massive accomplishment: it covered more than 2.5 acres — over 110,000 square feet, roughly two American football fields — and accommodated 2,000 extras and more than 60 structures.

For Circe, De Jong said: "We absolutely did not want a Hansel-and-Gretel version in the woods. But we didn't know where in the world Circe needed to land to work."

The answer was Scotland. "Circe needed to be near the ocean," De Jong said. "Odysseus and his men were hungry; they see smoke and go hunting. We settled on this cliff in the Scottish Highlands and constructed it right on the edge of the cliff. A few steps forward, and you're straight down."

The hut's design drew on the terrain itself. "Chris and I grabbed onto the topography and I designed it all based on the craggy rocks that existed," she said. "We played with the idea that maybe she commandeered or took over this house we built — maybe someone else had been there previously. Maybe it was just a bunch of ruins that she had repurposed. We sculpted Athena's head, added animals and just had a lot of fun with it."

De Jong also designed multiple Trojan horses, each standing approximately 35 feet tall.

What did Circe wear?

Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick had a clear directive from Nolan: like Calypso and Athena, Circe was a goddess. "Chris insisted that these goddesses were to be real — women who were independent and took care of themselves at all costs," she said. "There was nothing fantastical about it."

Mirojnick sent Morton a sketch. "She was so open, and in the sketch, we decided that her witchlike quality would be apparent," she said. "She'd be a female character, but her costume would indicate both male and female traits. There was leather, belts, and most importantly, she had different accouterments that she had collected from many people who had passed through her door. It rooted her in the past."

Who plays Telemachus and Penelope?

Papsidera also discussed the family: Tom Holland as Telemachus, Odysseus' son, and Anne Hathaway as Queen Penelope. "Anne was me," he said of the Hathaway casting. "Tom, we arrived upon."

He framed the castings through the lens of "Oppenheimer." "What we did in 'Oppenheimer' — giving faces to those scientists and not just letting them be anonymous — we did out of respect for the people in that atomic movement," he said. "Similarly, in 'The Odyssey,' these characters live in mythology, literature and people's minds. To pay respect to that, we knew we had to cast them in a bigger way."

On Holland, he said: "When you boil down how many actors are really right for a role like Telemachus, you come to Tom pretty quickly."

He added: "It wasn't about randomly casting names; it was about rooting the characters in reality while giving them the larger-than-life space they deserve as gods and goddesses."

De Jong closed by describing working with Nolan as "playing basketball with Kobe Bryant." She said: "I love somebody who is going to the mat and not say, 'That's difficult.' Every day was difficult on this job. Any one of us could go up to Chris and it's open communication. Conversation is there, and it's open."

The panel offered the fullest account yet of how Nolan's craftsmen are scaling Homer's epic — and suggests the film's mythological figures will arrive grounded in realism rather than fantasy.