How The Odyssey with Ralph Fiennes is different from Christopher Nolan’s version

Stephen Porzio

JOE spoke to Ralph Fiennes and his director about their version of Homer’s epic.

This week, JOE interviewed Oscar-nominee Ralph Fiennes when he was on the red carpet in Dublin for a screening of his new movie The Return, which is an adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic The Odyssey.

We spoke with Fiennes about a variety of topics, including his “fantastic experience” working with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell on In Bruges, his upcoming zombie film 28 Years Later and the rumours Cillian Murphy may be taking over the role of Lord Voldemort for the new Harry Potter TV show.

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Also, on the red carpet with the actor was the writer-director of The Return, Uberto Pasolini (Nowhere Special, Still Life).

We asked the pair about their reaction to the recent news that Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) is going to be making his own version of The Odyssey.

Specifically, we asked Fiennes if he was happy to “beat Nolan to the punch”, to which he jokingly replied: “Yes, of course. Got there first.”

He then added: “Well actually, Kirk Douglas got their first in the 1950s” – with the actor referring to the 1954 adaptation Ulysses.

As for Pasolini, he told JOE that he believes Nolan’s take on the classic story will be quite different to his, which mainly focuses on the last sections of Homer’s Odyssey.

The writer-director said:

“Christopher is an enormously talented man with a wonderful sense of connection with large audiences and it will be absolutely fascinating to see what he will do with it.

“The impression I have is he’s interested in bringing to the screen the whole of Homer’s epic whereas we were interested in one specific aspect of it which was the return of a real human being home, a soldier – so stripping the myth, stripping the gods, stripping the fantasy elements of the journey and focusing on how difficult it is to be a father, a son, a wife, a husband.

“It’s really the story of a family wrenched apart by war and maybe finding a way of coming together again. So, we are a much more focused, I think, project than what I understand Christopher Nolan is trying to do.

“Also, I’ve seen a couple of pictures of his production and his world is clearly a recreation of what the classical iconography we have of Greece whereas we went into a different direction. We went into an atemporal, timeless world. It’s very much stripped back.”

Matt Damon is Odysseus. A film by Christopher Nolan, #TheOdysseyMovie is in theaters July 17, 2026. pic.twitter.com/7a5YbfqVfG
— odysseymovie (@odysseymovie) February 17, 2025

Pasolini also noted that there is more than enough room for two adaptations of Homer’s Odyssey, explaining:

“I suspect the readings of Homer will be very very different but of course Homer allows [that]. You can tell the story of Homer in thousands of different ways, this story of Homer or, for that matter, The Iliad.

“The more there is the better, I think, because Homer is timeless. It’s not a question of being modern about it. He is absolutely timeless and we should be with Homer every day of our lives – from my point of view, at least.”