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Zendaya was in Iceland on the first day of filming her scenes for Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and could not open her mouth to say her dialogue because of the freezing conditions. As if acting in her first Nolan movie
wasn’t “nerve-racking” enough, the Emmy winner had to battle the elements to get the perfect performance as Greek god Athena.
“Here’s the thing. I had my lines and I wanted to have them so down. I psyched myself out a little bit,” Zendaya told the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “It was particularly cold. It was in Iceland. My mouth was just frozen. There is nothing coming out. My mouth would not move. Literally. It came out like, ‘Blah blah blah.’ So embarrassing.”
“But I will say, I think just showing up in any situation like this… It was such a pleasure and a gift to be able to share scenes with people you admire,” Zendaya continued. “Part of you has to compartmentalize to a degree. Lock in, we’re working. But I was so moved and excited to be there and wanted to do my best work.”
Not that Zendaya’s day one flub deterred Nolan at all. The director told Fandango in a separate interview that Zendaya was nothing but “perfect” during filming. She was apparently the only actor to be given such a designation.
“She was always perfect. Always perfect,” Nolan said before quipping: “I felt guilty when I first heard they were complaining bout it, but then I realized that’s kind of on them and not me.”
Nolan previously told Elle magazine that he cast Zendaya as Athena because of her “iconic” grace, adding: “I mean, she’s literally playing a goddess; it’s a tall order. She’s a true movie star, but also an incredible actor.”
Zendaya wasn’t the only one to have a small existential crisis on the first day of filming “The Odyssey.” Tom Holland, who plays Odysseus’ son Telemachus in the movie, told Fandango that he thought Nolan hated him on his first day because the director kept cutting the camera during his takes. Little did Holland know at the time that it was only because the movie was shooting with Imax cameras, which can’t run longer than three minutes for a single take.
“Working with the Imax cameras for the first time is an experience,” Holland explained. “It is unlike anything I have ever seen before, and I didn’t know that it only ran for three minutes. So, I remember you would continue cutting, and I was with Jon [Bernthal], like, ‘Why does he keep cutting? Why does he keep doing that?’ And in my head, I was like, ‘Does he not like what we’re doing? What is happening?’ And then, I remember it was actually [stunt coordinator] George Cottle that was like, ‘No, no, no, there’s only three minutes in the mag.’ I was like, ‘Oh, thank god.’ I thought I was totally sh*tting the bed in this scene.”
“The Odyssey” opens in theaters July 17 from Universal Pictures.
