It took a “cosmic bargain” to convince The Odyssey lead Matt Damon to come out of his (temporary) retirement to join the cast of Christopher Nolan’s record-breaking biopic Oppenheimer – reportedly agreeing with his wife during couples therapy that the British director was the only person for whom he’d return to the big screen. Now, he’s set to lead Nolan’s next epic adventure.
It’s no surprise, of course; getting the call-up from Nolan is the acting equivalent of winning the lottery; the one that any actor would (figuratively) kill for just to read for a part, no matter the size (or fire their agent for missing out on).
Nolan’s last release, Oppenheimer, was the biggest awards run of the filmmaker’s esteemed career, earning 13 Oscar nominations (and seven wins), including Best Picture and Best Director. But more importantly for its cast, it’s the first time one of Nolan’s films – critically acclaimed for story, cinematography, and sound – took the top gong for individual acting performances for Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. Coupled with more than a billion-dollar return at the box office, Nolan’s phone call is the one you drop everything to take.
But here’s the thing with Nolan: he appears to have a system, whether he’s knowingly implementing it or not. He’s used the same actor twice or more 28 times across those 13 features (Michael Caine eight times, Cillian Murphy six, and a strong foundation of Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, his own uncle John Nolan, and stunt-adjacent player Josh Stewart locked in for four apiece).
Of course, you could see this as Nolan having favourites; Damon described The Odyssey as the hardest he’s ever done in more than three decades in Hollywood, and that requires a cast and crew the Oscar-winning director can trust to deliver. Nolan’s company, in the old theatrical sense of the word; a standing troupe Nolan keeps pulling from, film after film, decade after decade.
Cillian Murphy took six films before he earned the call-up in the Oscar-winning titular role as Oppenheimer; Matt Damon turned up in Interstellar in a scene-stealing cameo and wasn’t actively reading for parts when Nolan called him about General Leslie Groves.
So the question isn't who Nolan likes; it's who's currently doing the waiting. Here we’ll take a look at the leading candidates, for good and for bad, to take the mantle of Christopher Nolan’s next film.
Robert Pattinson
The obvious choice, given Robert Pattinson’s official filmography and connection to the Nolan universe. The Odyssey will be Pattinson’s second Nolan release, starring as the antagonist Antinous after a supporting role in Tenet in 2020.
But the pair’s relationship runs even deeper: they’re neighbours in LA and frequently host movie nights with their spouses, giving Pattinson a more intimate understanding of the filmmaker’s process – what he likes; what he doesn’t.
Pattinson is also partly responsible for the resounding success of Oppenheimer, though he didn’t exactly earn an official credit for his contribution. As a wrap present on Tenet, he gave Nolan a book of J. Robert Oppenheimer's own writings, unprompted. Nolan has since credited that gift as part of what sparked his interest in the subject.
And if you’re still not convinced, you only have to look at Nolan’s comments to see where this longboat’s heading – and Pattinson’s (reluctant) horror experience could put him in a leading position to star in Nolan’s next genre-flipping project.
Tom Holland
For me, Tom Holland is next in line for Nolan’s next project, earning his stripes as Odysseus’ son Telemachus after decades within a big studio system.
During the promotion of the film, Holland said he called Sony chairman Tom Rothman directly and asked to push Spider-Man back six months to accommodate filming, without even knowing anything about it – revealing on Fallon Tonight the only detail he had going in was that the film involved a Cyclops. His own agents, working off scraps of rumour, guessed it was either a vampire movie or something set in space. Such is the Nolan pull.
But it clearly paid off: Holland’s said a week on Nolan's set taught him more about the craft than most of his career combined. He’s already called The Odyssey a “masterpiece,” so as a big Tom Holland fan, I’m hoping some of it stuck.
Himesh Patel
Himesh Patel's case isn’t the same as Pattinson's or Holland's, accentuated by a grand gesture like a wrap gift. But Patel’s as close to Nolan’s inner circle as anyone, referencing the work with the director as having an “in-house mentality”, similar to acting troupes of the past. It shows an actor with a steady and increasingly more significant trajectory with each Nolan project.
The Odyssey will be the British actor’s second Nolan credit, earning a minor role in Tenet. But his latest outing carries real narrative weight, reflecting the kind of jump that mirrors exactly where Murphy and Damon both stood one film before Nolan handed them the lead.
What makes him my dark horse pick, though, is what he doesn't have. He's not mid-franchise the way Pattinson is stealing mornings from Batman, or freshly off a studio’s biggest hope for the year, the size of Holland's. He's simply available, unclaimed, and rising fast enough on his own.
Anne Hathaway
After three films – Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, Amelia Brand in Interstellar, and now Penelope in The Odyssey – Anne Hathaway is quietly making the case to be Nolan’s first female lead, always earning prominent roles with Nolan’s biggest projects, but, ultimately, circling the edges of stories built around men.
Nolan’s even admitted through The Odyssey promotion that he needed her ability to hold a character's layers, and that Penelope demanded a maturity and stillness he wrote specifically with her in mind. It’s huge praise for an actor who was perhaps overlooked for an Oppenheimer credit that went to Emily Blunt (though, after the English actor’s Oscar-nominated performance, you had to admit Nolan made the right choice).
One thing we’ve learned with Nolan is that timing is everything: the right actor for the right project. The question now is whether Nolan's ready to build a film around a woman rather than beside one.
Tom Hardy
Tom Hardy has starred in three Nolan films throughout his career – Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk – all with varying levels of screentime but each one leaving its indelible mark on the filmmaker’s filmography – then nothing for over a decade.
Of course, actors fall out of a director's rotation for all kinds of unglamorous reasons – scheduling, other franchises, nothing personal at all – and when he was asked about it directly, all Hardy would say is that he'd love to work with Nolan again, but you never really know what might happen in the future.
It doesn’t feel like there’s any bitterness, just an honest shrug about not knowing what happens next. As a huge Hardy fan (imagine a Tom Hardy X Christopher Nolan Bond movie), it’s a shame to consider that the pair might simply be done.
Timothée Chalamet
The people’s prince Timothée Chalamet was only seventeen when Nolan hired him for a small role in Interstellar, reportedly crying for an hour the first time he saw how much of his role had been cut. Then in February this year, Nolan and Chalamet did a public reunion at a 70MM Interstellar screening in LA, with Nolan giving him a noogie on stage – a warm moment, given how far the Oscar-nominated actor has gone already in his career.
Perhaps we were seeing two contemporaries at the top of their respective games checking in on unfinished business. With 12 years now passed since Interstellar went, well, supernova, the stardom gap has closed. The teenage background actor of 2014 is now one of the biggest movie stars alive – any project with the two of them attached would be a genuine industry event, box office included.
