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Jon Stewart

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Jon Stewart

You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central. It's America's only source for news. This is the Daily show with your host, John Stewart. Hello everybody. By Jude Bellingham. I'm doing. I'm doing my Jude Bellingham celebration. Welcome to the Daily Show. My name is Jon Stewart. Great show for you tonight. Later on, we're going to be joined by the unbelievably amazing director. Christopher Nolan's going to be joining us. Christopher Nolan's going to be joining us. Called the Odyssey. Based on the video console from the

Co-host/Commentator

1970s, It's all about Pong. But first, obviously big news from the weekend. The sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Obviously I knew him a bit from lobbying down a Capitol Hill, but I didn't know him particularly well. So I'll let Lindsey Graham's Best friend memorialize the late senator.

Reporter/Interviewer

Joining us now by phone is one of his best friends, President Donald Trump. I know you lost one of your closest friends and an ally in the Senate. How are you feeling?

Donald Trump

Well, I don't feel great. He was a great guy. He was a friend. He would call me all the time. He would just, I'd say, stop calling me Lindsey.

Jon Stewart

I'll never forget the way that I

Co-host/Commentator

always let him go to voicemail.

Jon Stewart

It was a,

Co-host/Commentator

it was our thing.

Jon Stewart

Obviously he's just opening the eulogy on

Co-host/Commentator

a light hearted note. Sure. The poignancy follows.

Donald Trump

Loved playing golf, loved being outside. It wasn't that he was a great striker of the ball. He wasn't exactly a perfect. He wasn't Jack Nicklaus. He was not Tiger. He was totally against me. He said, I'll get you in South Carolina. I'm going to get you in South Carolina. That didn't work out too well. It was a nasty campaign. He was tough and nasty. I wanted to see the war with Ukraine end. I think he was more into, you know, keeping it going, frankly. He was a total workaholic politician. Now, some people don't call that work. Some people call that a lot of talking.

Co-host/Commentator

Well, I, I think the president has

Jon Stewart

zoomed through the first five stages of grief. And gone straight to number six. That guy. By the way, it takes a lot of balls for Donald Trump to gently roast someone for yapping too much. He's the one who toasted his friend on meet the press, CNN's State of the Union, Fox and Friends. Trump was everywhere remembering Lindsey Graham, even when the host of the show appeared to not want him to.

Donald Trump

These people suffer from a very fine disease known as Trump Derangement syndrome. And he was saying that.

Jon Stewart

And Mr. President, did you notice it

Donald Trump

really come a long way on terminating the filibuster.

Jon Stewart

But Mr. President, did you notice anything?

Donald Trump

They find millions and millions of balances impossible. And they didn't know in two weeks. They let it be known an hour later.

Jon Stewart

Mr. President, real quickly, did you notice anything different from last year?

Donald Trump

He's going to be on the run up. So these elections are very dishonest.

Jon Stewart

I'm sorry, Mr. President, the TV station's going through a tunnel. But of course, even his best friend, Donald Trump had to concede that Senator Graham's career did have a bad moment.

Donald Trump

Now, he had one bad moment and that was, you know, the January 6th thing when he stood up. All right, now I've had it. That's it. I can't do it anymore. So I give him a 99 instead of a 100. You know, most people. A lot of people were at 100, but he did have that one little moment.

Co-host/Commentator

You know,

Jon Stewart

my favorite part of any

Co-host/Commentator

eulogy is when they announce the person's life score.

Jon Stewart

He's doing a eulogy like it's Portnoy doing a pizza review. Yeah. Graham had a good undercarriage. Good mouthfeel. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm doing a score. A life score. I'm doing a life score over here. Anyway. 8, 2. I'm gonna give him an 8 2. Solid score. 8. If he had let the people kill him on January 6th, 9, 2. Monster score. I'd give him a monster score. Now, before Graham passed, he was not feeling well and was kind of joking

Co-host/Commentator

about how he didn't have time to die.

Reporter/Interviewer

Axios reported that several hours before his death, Senator Graham complained of feeling unwell and said, I can't die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli Saudi normalization. He passed away a short time later.

Jon Stewart

Holy shit. Middle east peace is about as ambitious as a bucket list item can get. I want to bring Israel back into the family of nations and go whale watching.

Co-host/Commentator

But let this episode be a lesson, people. Write it down. Write your last wishes down. Write what you want to accomplish in your name down. Because Donald Trump had a very different interpretation of Lindsay's last wishes.

Donald Trump

He was pushing the Save America act like crazy. This is a big. This is a big blow to the Save America act, let me tell you.

Co-host/Commentator

And then Lindsey said to me, his voice weakening, barely a whisper, he said to me, donald, when I die,

Donald Trump

float

Jon Stewart

my body down the crystal clear reflecting pool water. So. So that I may lie in state in your completed ballroom. I said, lindsay, don't. Don't. Save your strength, Lindsay. He said, no, no, no. One more thing I want before I leave this mortal coil for them to put your name back on the Kennedy bo. But.

Co-host/Commentator

Now a lot of you may be wondering, as I was,

Jon Stewart

how the did Lindsey Graham die before Mitch McConnell? How the is that possible? It's hard to believe. McConnell was the one who spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals since his Capitol hill buffering episodes. McConnell was the one who suddenly disappeared for a month and nobody heard from him to the point where the governor of his own state was asking for proof of life, which, coincidentally, we got yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you totally believable evidence that Mitch McConnell is not only alive, but the happiest boy in the hospital. He's the happiest boy in the hospital. That's the smile of a make a wish kid whose wish was that everyone else in the hospital lost their health insurance due to his policies. And after that, And after that, of course, Mitch and his wife released even more photos.

Co-host/Commentator

Here they are at Disney riding Splash Mountain.

Jon Stewart

Then apparently they climbed the spire of the Empire State Building and renewed their vows. And then, let's say, went to a World cup game.

Co-host/Commentator

Might not be out of the woods yet.

Jon Stewart

Regardless, McConnell is still here and Graham is gone.

Co-host/Commentator

And so it was time for the

Jon Stewart

media to discuss Graham's legacy for like

Co-host/Commentator

a couple of minutes.

Reporter/Interviewer

No, this is. This is so tough for you and for so many there on Capitol. Because it really was so sudden. No one was expecting this. We have to turn to the crude numbers of it.

Narrator/Advertiser

All right, Todd Blanche's path to getting confirmed as Attorney General just got a whole lot more complicated.

Reporter/Interviewer

Unfortunately, your majority now down to 52.

Co-host/Commentator

Mitch McConnell's continued absence now leaving Republicans with just 51 senators.

Jon Stewart

If Collins votes against, you're down to 50. The vice president breaks the tie. But what if it's Collins and Murkowski?

Co-host/Commentator

Republicans were already struggling with the numbers.

Jon Stewart

Add in Lindsey Graham now being off the table. I'm sorry, off the table. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have a winner for worst dying euphemism yet off the ticket. Where's Old Yeller?

Co-host/Commentator

Don't worry, Timmy. We just had to take him off the table. Although I guess the numbers have been pretty tight in the Congress for a while now. I wonder why that is.

Jon Stewart

The current Congress is the third oldest in U.S. history.

Co-host/Commentator

With the average age of senators nearly 64.

Reporter/Interviewer

131 out of the 530 members of Congress are 70 or older. Graham is the sixth member of Congress to die this term.

Jon Stewart

What the. This term? He's the sixth member of Congress to die this term. 6. If this were any other business, they'd shut it down to figure out what the is going on. Six of them have di. Gas leak, serial killer. Six of them are dead. My God. Those are Petco gerbil numbers. What are they just coming to Congress every morning with a shovel? What the is going on down there? It's not like the job is dangerous. They're just sitting there. They're not filming Deadliest Catch. Oh, come on. No way he's in that show. Wow, he really is healthy. And not to put too fine a point on it, but the last person to speak to Graham is our 80 year old president. The governor who chooses Graham's replacement is 79. One of the candidates being considered is 78, but he backed out because he's too important at his current job in the House of Representatives. All to save the Todd Blanche hearings which are being co run by 92 year old Chuck Grassley and whippersnapper Dick Durbin. The entire Congress is falling apart due to a lack of not just political will, but bone density.

Reporter/Interviewer

83 year old Florida Democratic Congresswoman Frederica Wilson recovering from an eye surgery.

Jon Stewart

89 year old Chuck Grassley getting hip replacement.

Reporter/Interviewer

Senator Patrick Leahy, a broken hip. Nancy Pelosi, hip replacement surgery.

Co-host/Commentator

Steny Hoyer is in the hospital with pneumonia. Eleanor Holmes Norton is in the early stages of dementia.

Christopher Nolan

DWIGHT Evans, who's 71, had a stroke.

Jon Stewart

Bernie Sanders sidelined by a heart attack.

Christopher Nolan

Congresswoman Kay Granger lived in an assisted

Jon Stewart

living facility for dementia patients while still

Christopher Nolan

serving in Congress and drawing a congressional paycheck.

Jon Stewart

And all of those by the way, are the ones who were still on the table. The whole place is a Skyrizi commercial. Free samples.

Co-host/Commentator

Get some free samples. Skyrizi. Look, I'm no prize. I get that people age differently. Why are we tolerating this level of national frailty in our lawmaking? And it's not just anti old people. It's not disrespect to ask this question. In Japan they revere the elderly, but the one thing they don't do is put them in charge of everything. What's the fore argument here?

Reporter/Interviewer

Well, age is a relative thing, as we all know. His experience is an advantage to us and not to be described as a disadvantage.

Co-host/Commentator

Oh, experience, that's right. This is actually the most experienced Congress we've ever had.

Jon Stewart

How is that working out?

Reporter/Interviewer

The most unproductive Congress in the first year of a president in history. Potentially the least productive in modern history.

Jon Stewart

Fewest laws passed since at least the 1950s. As our government has gotten older, the economy has gotten worse, Inequality more severe, our safety net shredded. The irony is that this long past

Co-host/Commentator

retirement age government has policies that force

Jon Stewart

everyone else to have to work long past retirement age. Mostly though without a health care plan

Co-host/Commentator

that covers a mysterious month in the hospital.

Jon Stewart

Because we don't have a system that

Co-host/Commentator

rewards experience and competence and performance. We have a system that rewards incumbency. These people aren't brilliant, they're barnacles. Utterly incapable of addressing a world moving much faster than the speed of Matlock.

Jon Stewart

Why does it matter? Here's the co chair of the House

Co-host/Commentator

Army Caucus co chair Congressman John Carter of Texas explaining Why it's imperative to remediate our outdated defense systems.

Jon Stewart

Another issue that's very important. The department has historically relied on outdated production techniques of energetic manufacturing which may have remained unchanged since the second world war. Since the civil War, since the second world. The blur in my mind having been at both. How is the department ensuring that investment in next generation energetics manufacturing such as AI machine learning capabilities and enabling and assurance of insure quality assurance.

Co-host/Commentator

I take no pleasure in this. But this is not right. The stakes are too high. There's no way that dude even knows how to put his phone on silent.

Jon Stewart

How can our government make better use of the chatgaput? You guys working on the government gonna get that jackaput? If I can get a checkerboard to

Donald Trump

put in a government.

Jon Stewart

We're going to get a government to put in a jacket, get an insurance and an assurance. In the Civil War, the Jacob. I do not think the people deciding rules about the most advanced technology on earth should look like they're steam powered. I'm gonna shout. You kaput. No. Get some more coal up the ass and get me going again. Come on. Come on now. Shovel that shit right up my ass. Everyone understands. You cannot have the country ruled by

Co-host/Commentator

people this old and frail.

Jon Stewart

Everyone except them.

Reporter/Interviewer

Senator Mitch McConnell said over the weekend. I'm not taking a break from the senate business that matters to you. I still have unfinished business to complete on your behalf. And I have every intention of finishing the job you elected me to do.

Jon Stewart

Don't. Don't finish it. We're fine. You don't have to finish the job. And by the way, I am going nowhere because I have unfinished business. Literally is what a ghost would say. That is what a ghost would say. I'm not leav. I have unfinished. You cannot banish me. My soul has unfinished business. I must curtail your access to food stamps. And again, I am in no way suggesting that old people cannot be productive at their jobs. But at the highest levels of our government, there is no check on when they are no longer capable of doing just that. But their power remains advanced age is just one more way in which our government is at a remove from the

Co-host/Commentator

needs of the people they purport to serve. And they have too much power to be this disconnected. If only there was somebody in the government who understood that we need a Democratic party that opens its doors to new people, new energy and new ideas.

Jon Stewart

That kid gets it. When we come back, Christopher Nolan will be joining me in the studio. That's all right.

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Jon Stewart

Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guest tonight, Oscar winning director, Oscar winning writer and producer. His new film is called the Odyssey. Please welcome Christopher Nolan. Welcome.

Donald Trump

Thank you.

Jon Stewart

Thank you for joining us.

Co-host/Commentator

Let me begin by saying this.

Jon Stewart

Holy shit.

Co-host/Commentator

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

Yeah, real boats.

Donald Trump

Real water.

Christopher Nolan

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, Anne Hathaway, everybody, Rob Pattinson. Get them out there in the world. Find locations, real locations. Get a real boat. You know, get out there, get a real cyclops. Get a real cyclops. As close as we could. Yep. Yep. Exactly.

Co-host/Commentator

What made you decide to take on this epic work?

Christopher Nolan

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.

Co-host/Commentator

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

I think it helped that it was very successful.

Jon Stewart

You think the Oscar thing helped?

Christopher Nolan

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, to the Odyssey, it should be hard.

Co-host/Commentator

It shows up on screen. I mean, all of it shows up on screen. And 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

Yes.

Co-host/Commentator

Never happens. It was never happens.

Jon Stewart

I mean, it just. How?

Christopher Nolan

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.

Co-host/Commentator

You were done.

Christopher Nolan

We were done. Everybody was done. I mean, people were just exhausted.

Co-host/Commentator

Right.

Christopher Nolan

They'd been through it. 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.

Co-host/Commentator

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's actually studied those texts in Greek, and I was looking at him 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.

Christopher Nolan

Oh, great. Great.

Co-host/Commentator

One note.

Jon Stewart

Okay.

Christopher Nolan

It's a little late. What time is it?

Donald Trump

Okay.

Co-host/Commentator

Apparently there is a joke that Odysseus makes with Cyclops.

Christopher Nolan

Yes, yes.

Co-host/Commentator

He was very upset that that Was not in the movie.

Christopher Nolan

I. I understand. It's a pun. Puns in translation are tough. Do you do a lot of puns in your monologues every night that, you

Co-host/Commentator

know, we do sometimes, but only because we write the show at a fifth grade level, just slightly different.

Christopher Nolan

There you go. It was. I tried. It was not possible to work it in.

Co-host/Commentator

Have you, when you do something like this that so many people feel a sense of ownership over?

Christopher Nolan

Yeah, yeah.

Co-host/Commentator

Or did the experience with things like Batman already kind of inure you to that experience?

Christopher Nolan

Not in you. It taught you what's at the base of it. You know, when you take on the character of Batman, as we did in the Dark Knight trilogy, you were dealing with at that time, 75 years of history with a beloved character who'd been worked on by these incredible writers and artists. And what we learned in that experience is if we made the best film we possibly could, if we put as strong an interpretation on the characters we could, the fans felt the respect and the love for the source material, even if we weren't doing exactly what they would have done. That was what was important, was to respect the material. And I think the same applies very much to Homer.

Co-host/Commentator

That is a very interesting take, because I would imagine it's easy to approach it with almost a sense of defensiveness, which I've seen in those kinds of films where they say, well, these people, it's a toxic fandom. And they won't. But that's a very different mindset, which is, I want to make sure that I've honored this material in the right way, and that should resonate with them.

Christopher Nolan

Yeah, I mean, that's what we found at every stage with those movies. People have very strong feelings about the characters they're interested, and that's a huge advantage for a filmmaker. I mean, the fact that people have been fascinated by the Odyssey for 3,000 years, the fact that people care about a film coming out, that's a huge advantage. It means we've got people to. And now we have to show them something that feels worthwhile. It feels like it does justice to this incredible story.

Co-host/Commentator

Right. And it does have that. That epic nature. This is going to feel far afield. It felt like in some respects, the Odyssey was a sequel to Oppenheimer. And I. I know that sounds incredibly, incredibly dumb. So let me explain why I think that I'm incredibly dumb. When I think about Oppenheimer.

Donald Trump

What.

Co-host/Commentator

What so stayed with me in that movie was the weight that Oppenheimer must have felt when he saw the Reality of what he had created. And the Odyssey feels like a journey of a man reckoning with what he had done in war and what war does to men. And it made it. They felt very connected to me both films.

Christopher Nolan

I was about to stop you because we don't want any spoilers. Oh, 3,000 year old spoilers. But no, I am very much. I feel like you certainly watched the film the way I intended and I think by the end that connection is made. You know, the interpretation of, of the Odyssey, what it could mean, the idea of these extraordinary events of the Trojan War, the horse, all of this. Yeah, we wanted to try and wrestle with it, you know, in a modern sense to try and say, okay, what if these things were real? What if we were there? What would it be like? You know, what would the resonance be? What would the gravity of the situation be? And in micro, you know, it's things like being on a real ship in a real storm or going into the cave of the Cyclops. What would that really be like? And the answer is intense. And as far as the effect of everything that Odysseus has been through and what part he's played in this mythic conflict of the Trojan War. Yeah, it felt like the thing to do was really try and take that on with a certain amount of weight, a certain amount of gravity. But for me, every film I do, if I've done my job right, I leave it with questions and sort of interesting things that I want to keep drilling down on.

Co-host/Commentator

Right.

Christopher Nolan

And coming out of Oppenheimer. Yeah, I definitely brought Oppenheimer into this movie with me. Yeah, certainly.

Co-host/Commentator

And it's also because the movies are all so well constructed, I feel like you would have been a great architect as well, if you wanted to be. Like there is. There's such wonderful symmetry and puzzles to unfold in there.

Jon Stewart

Do.

Co-host/Commentator

Do you approach it as a constructor?

Christopher Nolan

I do. I mean, I do. Before I write, I do a lot of sort of diagramming out. I write, you know, I draw a lot of pictures, not storyboards, but actually diagrams of the narrative and how the structure might work and. And coming to this poem, I mean, Homer's original is one of the great non linear structures.

Donald Trump

Right.

Christopher Nolan

Which for me, you know, that's kind of structure I enjoy in cinematic storytelling. So I really try to be faithful to that. But yeah, I do a lot of sort of visual diagramming, a lot of trying to think in. Trying to find ways to think of the narrative in three dimensional terms. Then I sit down and write when I've Done months and months of that, and it does.

Co-host/Commentator

You know, you said something interesting when you said, you know, it's this nonlinear story, and it has so many narrators, and you don't know who's reliable and who is not reliable. Is that something you have to decide as you go in? Do you think to yourself, well, Telemachus, he's reliable, or Penelope is, or even Odysseus. Are there moments where you think, did this even happen to him? Is this just his mind trying to erase the pain of what he went through in Troy?

Christopher Nolan

Are we going deep now?

Jon Stewart

Go deep, baby.

Christopher Nolan

Yeah, I know, I know.

Jon Stewart

Here's the thing. I will never get a chance to

Co-host/Commentator

get high with you in a dorm room.

Jon Stewart

So this is it, baby. This is all we got. Because it really. I'm telling you this.

Co-host/Commentator

This is a poignant work. It really speaks to the moment we're in and everything.

Christopher Nolan

No, I mean, I actually. I love the nature of the question. I'm just trying to think of how to answer it for people who haven't seen the movie. And I don't want to. Well, I never like to define the experience for the audience. So for me, there are ambiguities, there are questions, there are layers in which things can work. But the answer to the first part of your question, and this has always been the case for me with my work, is I have to know the answer. I have to know what I believe the answer to be, and then otherwise the ambiguities won't be productive. Non answer. As opposed to. If you look at the ending of Inception, for example, the Spinning Top, and the, you know, people often will ask

Co-host/Commentator

me, you know, was it.

Christopher Nolan

Well, exactly.

Co-host/Commentator

And when you approach it, though, in your mind, you know the answer yes. But that's not something that you put out there, because that changes the experience.

Donald Trump

Exactly.

Co-host/Commentator

The viewer.

Christopher Nolan

First time I ever took a film, you know, really out there and did a bunch of interviews on it was Memento, right? And that's a film I wrote based on a short story that my brother had written. And he came with me, came with us to the. The Venice Film Festival, where we premiered it. And right afterwards, I was asked a bunch of questions, and they asked me about the ambiguity of the end, right? And I said, well, it's meant to. Meant to be up to you. But I think it's this, this, this. And he took me aside and he's like, nobody heard the first part where they said, it's meant to be up to you. All they hear is what you say, your Interpretation trumps everything. You can never do that again. And he was right. And I never have since then, because.

Co-host/Commentator

Okay, I'm just gonna cross out my McConaughey in the library. Interstellar question.

Jon Stewart

Son of a bitch. Do you.

Co-host/Commentator

Do you find yourself. Because it feels like the type of project that's so literally immersive, do you have to complete a work before you begin to do those diagrams and sketches of other work, or do you find yourself in certain phases of it, beginning to plant seeds in other areas that you'll revisit?

Christopher Nolan

No, I very specifically do one thing at a. A time. Like, once I burrow in on a project, I. Nothing else exists. I mean, family, just about, you know, it's you. You know, one of the responsibilities. But one of the. One of the great thrills of my job is you get to sort of live in a world for a couple of years, and I devote myself to that fully. And for me, that's never finished, really, until the film goes out to the audience. The audience finishes the movie, they tell us what it is that we did, and so we're right now, you know, a few days away, and it's a terrifying time.

Co-host/Commentator

Is that so? Do you feel a little bit of the jitters from that, or do you think you've got a pretty good idea of where you think it'll. It'll land for people? Have you seen it enough with people?

Christopher Nolan

I've seen it enough with people. We screen it as we go to guinea pigs, you know.

Jon Stewart

Sure.

Co-host/Commentator

By the way, also, in the movie,

Jon Stewart

Odysseus fights guinea pig. He's changed some things around.

Christopher Nolan

Yeah. So you, you know, you have an idea of how the movie's playing for an audience. But the truth is, there's nothing like going out into the world for thousands and thousands of screens all over the world, you know, over one weekend. I mean, that's a very different thing. And it never gets any easier, and it's absolutely terrifying.

Donald Trump

Fine.

Co-host/Commentator

Can I ask you one particular sequence? The Trojan horse sequence.

Christopher Nolan

Yeah.

Co-host/Commentator

Which is something that I think for all of us that have a familiarity with, you know, the Iliad and the Odyssey and sort of our introduction to myth and Edith Hamilton and, you know, all how that all spins off. The Trojan horse had always existed as a certain methodology for how it gets in Detroit. You take a very different approach.

Christopher Nolan

Yeah.

Co-host/Commentator

That I thought landed thematically, the poignancy of it. Much better.

Christopher Nolan

Thank you.

Co-host/Commentator

So I guess what I'm saying is, Homer ain't got shit on you,

Donald Trump

But.

Jon Stewart

No.

Co-host/Commentator

What was the process Just going into that particular scene because just the mechanics of it seemed so difficult, but also it just. It felt like such a brilliant summation thematically of the weight that Odysseus felt like he was carrying.

Jon Stewart

Yeah.

Christopher Nolan

I mean, a lot of that thinking for me comes about as a result of looking at it and saying, okay, how can we have this work and be credible for a modern audience?

Co-host/Commentator

Right.

Christopher Nolan

We all know when we see a Trojan horse that it's stuffed with Greeks, you know, so you're starting from a difficult position. It's like, how do you sell that concept?

Jon Stewart

It's a pinata that fights back.

Christopher Nolan

It's a pinata that fights back. And I. I had, actually 20 years ago, I was briefly attached to direct Troy, the film that David Benioff had written, based on the Iliad.

Co-host/Commentator

Yes, I read that that was the Brad Pitt. It was.

Christopher Nolan

Yeah. So I had. I had to figure out, because the horse was. Was in that script, even though it's not in the Iliad, they put it in the film. And so I had to sort of figure out, well, what's my approach to it? And I came up with this idea of the horse half buried in the sand, about to be destroyed or carried away by the waves, so that as the Trojans find it, the last thing it looks like, you know, there's no wheels. There's no. It doesn't look like something that's meant to be carried into the city. And that image stuck with me for, you know, decades. I really wanted to do that and flesh out the whole sequence because to me, that was the excitement. It's like, can we present this to an audience in a way that they can believe in? And that was the sort of mantra for everybody on the film with every sequence.

Co-host/Commentator

Right.

Christopher Nolan

People want to go on this journey with us. Let's give them a reason to believe.

Co-host/Commentator

It's grounded in a practical realism that I think is what helps it create that epic. Because I'm raised in the Clash of the Titans generation. You know, sort of Harry Hamlin with the band and then, like the. The Scylla comes into the wall. You know, it's. It was all like claymation and camp. And that's how I've never seen that type of movie portrayed. With a sort of, like you say, grounded realism.

Jon Stewart

Even though they're gods.

Christopher Nolan

Well, and this is the thing is, you know, when we looked at it, Greek mythology hadn't really been told in modern cinema in that way. The work of Ray Harryhausen. You're talking about Clash of the Titans. And things like that. Very, very brilliant. Handmade.

Co-host/Commentator

Loved the book.

Christopher Nolan

Amazing approach, but always on a B movie budget. Never with the ability to kind of put it out there big, you know, with, with an incredible cast and, you know, on, on that sort of scale. And I think it was those technical limitations, like in the great era of, you know, sword and sandals movies, the 50s and 60s, you have the techniques to be able to embrace the fantastical. And what is the Odyssey without the fantastical? You know, you want to see the Cyclops, you want to see Scylla and Charybdis and the Sirens and Cersei and all of that.

Co-host/Commentator

Cersei, boy, those scenes are just spectacular.

Christopher Nolan

That's Samantha Morton, incredible actor.

Co-host/Commentator

Incredible.

Christopher Nolan

Wanted to work with for a long time.

Co-host/Commentator

And you even had to, you know, when you were talking about the technology of it, you had to sort of create machinery that didn't exist. Because IMAX is notoriously loud.

Christopher Nolan

Yes, cameras are. I mean, it's like a generator.

Jon Stewart

Yes.

Christopher Nolan

It's crazy thing to have to act in front of. So in the past we'd always used it for the action scenes. I saw IMAX first, I was about 16 years old at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. And I wanted, right then I was like, if I could ever.

Jon Stewart

At 16.

Donald Trump

Yeah, yeah.

Christopher Nolan

I wanted to make a film entirely in imax on the Dark Knight. I had the opportunity to meet with IMAX and say, can we use your cameras and do the action scenes that way? So the introduction of Heath Ledger's Joker, truck flip, all that's imax. But because the cameras are so loud, we couldn't do performances, we couldn't capture the dialogue. And so finally with this film, I called them up and I said, look, if ever there were a film to do the entire film in imax, this is the one. So can we find a way to silence the cameras? And they built this blimping system, this kind of high tech box you put the camera in and then you can,

Co-host/Commentator

you can actually, you're filming dialogue, but that IMAX has got to run out. How long? What's the cartoon?

Christopher Nolan

A little under three minutes.

Jon Stewart

So every three minutes?

Christopher Nolan

Yeah, every three minutes you're saying to the actors, just stay in that mode,

Jon Stewart

stay in the water.

Christopher Nolan

Incredibly dramatic scene.

Co-host/Commentator

And you can't bring nine days faster and under budget even with that.

Christopher Nolan

Well, I think actually sometimes the limitations give everybody a real focus. And so I went to the actors early on and I said, in the middle of your most intense scene, is it okay if we just stop the camera, reload it. Keep everybody quiet.

Co-host/Commentator

Here's what I'm gonna say. Yeah, you're a wizard, Harry, and the film is spectacular.

Donald Trump

Thank you.

Jon Stewart

And as always, you are my favorite

Co-host/Commentator

filmmaker and I just so appreciate the intentionality that you put into it and the craft of it and the beauty of it. And it's just spectacular. And I do hope everybody rushes out to see it in the way that it was intended because it's really a remarkable piece of work. Congratulations.

Christopher Nolan

Thank you very much.

Jon Stewart

Christopher Nolan, ladies and gentlemen, on the show this morning, July 17th. We're going to take quick breaks and be right back.

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Jon Stewart

That is our show for tonight, but before we go, we're gonna check in with your host for the rest of the week, Mr. Michael Costa. Michael,

Co-host/Commentator

excellent.

Jon Stewart

What's happening for the rest of this week? Diarrhea, John. Everyone's got it. Including, if you can believe this, women who knew.

Co-host/Commentator

I assume you're talking about this parasite that's been in the news kind of sweeping across America. Is it?

Jon Stewart

Yes, John. At least 32 states have reported cases. And while it's still unclear how people are getting infected, previous outbreaks have been caused by raspberries, Lettuce, John, and petri dishes. But hey, that's not going to stop me from enjoying my three favorite foods. Michael Costa, everybody. Good luck to you. Here it is, your mom and his a Sean Duffy.

Donald Trump

This guy Sean is exceptional. And you know what people don't know?

Jon Stewart

He was the world record in going up logs, going up to the top of these stupid trees.

Donald Trump

I never saw anything like.

Jon Stewart

And Sean had.

Donald Trump

How many years were you the champion of that?

Jon Stewart

Five.

Donald Trump

For five years, he was the world champion.

Jon Stewart

He was a lumberjack. Who the hell knew that about Sean Duffy? Explore more shows from the Daily show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show. Wherever you get your podcast, watch the Daily show weeknights at 1110 Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount.

Christopher Nolan

Plus,

Jon Stewart

This has been a Comedy Central podcast.