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A collage of images of Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson, Matt Damon as Odysseus, Zendaya as Athena, and Tom Holland in Christopher Nolan's “The Odyssey” film.Photos: Universal PicturesSave StorySave this storySave StorySave this story

“It is a time of apparent magic….” This is how Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey begins. A single line of text against a black screen, reminding viewers of (or introducing them to) Homer’s mythological tale of gods and goddesses, spells and potions, monsters and mystical disguises. Nolan’s film has all of that: the giant Cyclops and the six-headed dog; lotus flowers that, when eaten, erase your memory; Circe, the sorceress, who transforms Odysseus’s men into pigs with her bare hands, in one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in the film (literally and figuratively). The director famously prefers in-camera effects versus CGI, so an integral part of creating this “apparent magic” onscreen was through hair and makeup in the film.

Greek mythology is full of colorful, physical descriptions, often repeated over and over again. Depending on the translation, Athena is the goddess “of the bright owl-eyes.” Calypso is “the nymph with the lovely braids.” When Athena de-ages Odysseus at the climax of the poem, she makes his “hair grow thick on top of his head and flow down in curls like hyacinth blooms.” Hair department lead, Gloria Pasqua Casny, and makeup department head, Luisa Abel, had these references in their heads when designing the beauty looks for the film, but they also had direction from Nolan to keep everything more grounded.

The director wanted “an earthy narrative,” and despite the scale of the film—including the 65 mm film it was shot on, the larger-than-life creatures, and the many complicated battle and boat scenes—in Nolan’s hands, the 3,000-year-old epic poem takes on an intimate, human quality. The way Casny and Abel designed the characters’ hair and makeup has much to do with evoking that feeling.

Below, we break down the the ways Casny and Abel helped bring Homer's tale to life, speaking to them not only about their research and processes, but also how they added that little bit of magic that—based on the response to the film—is making society fall in love with the classic tale once again.

Styling the hair, the Ancient Greek way

Both Casny and Abel looked to ancient Greek art and artifacts in their research for the film. Casny spent time in museums, and Abel examined “pottery, murals, and paintings that showed what facial hair and people’s faces look[ed like] at the time.” Abel also looked into the type of cosmetics people would have had access to in ancient Greece, and “was able to test modern products that simulated the right colors but gave us a lightweight, flawless look that we wanted for IMAX.”

While researching ancient Greek hair practices, Casny came across a few surprises. After a trip to the Brooklyn Museum, she “found that 3,000 years ago, there were curling irons,” and the “ancient Greeks also had barbershops.” Both discoveries informed her choices for many of the principal cast and background actors.

In Greek mythology, curly hair is talked about a lot. It was a sign of vitality and beauty, heroism and divinity. In the book, Odysseus’s hair texture is described as “curling hair like hyacinth petals,” and while Matt Damon kept his natural texture for his turn as the wily warrior, many characters embraced and enhanced their natural curls.

Casny was particularly happy when Tom Holland, who plays Odysseus’s son Telemachus, showed up with his natural bouncy texture. “Tom has great curly hair, and when he came in [for tests], I just shook his hair up and was like, ‘You are not cutting it or wearing it straight,’” she recalls. She used a bit of mousse (often R&Co) and argan oil for some extra zhuzhing on set.

Tom Holland’s curls were enhanced with mousse for his role as Telemachus.

Universal Pictures

Many of the bronze and gold hair accessories throughout the film are also inspired by Bronze Age artifacts. For Odysseus’s long-patient wife Persephone (Anne Hathaway), Casny found Bronze Age hairpins with little birds on the ends that the props team duplicated for her to use in the film. A jewelry maker in Morocco, where much of the movie was filmed, recreated gilded flowers that Casny had also come across.

For Lupita Nyong’o, who plays both Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra (who are twins in Nolan's adaptation), Casny decorated the hair of both characters with gold thread from the costume department, and beads and gold strips she found on Etsy. For Clytemnestra, specifically, Casny had a hairpiece designed for her featuring an image of a bird she found in her research. Casny wanted an accessory that reflected the spinal shape of the helmet of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra’s husband, but also symbolized her desire to be free of the husband that forced her to sacrifice their daughter. “We were saying that this is her symbol of freedom, of which he had no idea," says Casny, "her own secret little pin.”

Bringing the gods down to earth

In this version of The Odyssey, we rarely see the gods. (Zeus and Poseidon are alluded to only through thunder and stormy seas.) The deities you do see aren’t bathed in gold light or dripping in jewels; their looks are pared down, rugged, and very human—and that was the point. For Nolan, the “whole thing was him having it grounded,” explains Casny.

Calypso (Charlize Theron), for instance, is a recluse living on a remote island, catching her own fish —almost like Survivor vibes, says Casny. The filming location’s 30-50 mph winds helped achieve the effect of Calypso's aesthetic, as did mousse scrunched in her hair “for a gritty look,” and leave-in conditioner and serum from Virtue Labs to help it stay looking wet (Theron’s personal hairstylist, Adir Abergel, is creative director of the brand). To tie up her hair, Casny used some gauze from Theron’s costume, creating shapes that “looked like she would do it herself.” Abel kept her makeup “tanned and broken down, with a more outdoor feel,” signaling the “warrior, self-sufficient aspect of her character.”

Matt Damon as Odysseus, aged with gray hair pieces and makeup, and Zendaya as Athena.

Universal Pictures

In Casny’s mind, Circe (Samantha Morton) was in a disheveled disguise in order to lure in Odysseus’s men, gain their trust, and take advantage of them. And when it came to Athena (Zendaya), “I think the whole thing with Athena [in this film] is that she is the image of the young village girl killed [during the Battle of Troy], and that's what stayed in Odysseus’s mind—that’s the form she took in his imagination—and it helped a lot with how her look ended up,” explains Casny.

Zendaya’s bob was middle parted, woven into two little braids that were tucked back, and covered with a headscarf. For her makeup, her look is a very pared-back version of the flushed cheeks and bare lashes she wore to the New York premiere of the film—blush and all. Abel “wanted her character to be flawless while maintaining a grounded quality,” she explains. “She has a very youthful, translucent look that we achieved with sheer makeup, such as Merit blush.”

Battling the elements… and recreating them

The hair and makeup teams experienced their own epic-sized journey in dealing with the weather on set, including humidity and 50 mph winds in Morocco, sideways rain in Iceland, and freezing temperatures and rocky waters during the film’s many boat scenes. “I was so thankful Christopher didn’t want wigs," Casny says with a laugh. "I’m not sure how we would have managed.”

When Odysseus and his men were sailing, they often didn't need help staying absolutely soaked to the bone, but here’s the thing about getting your hair wet: It does dry eventually…and frizz and poof in random directions when not styled. In most scenes, Casny needed a way to keep the men looking wet and sweaty, and she did that with lots and lots of hair wax, which is great for recreating the effect of sweat sticking to your skin; for Damon, she “went through every hair and smashed it in—coats and coats of it so it didn’t move.”

Filming in sideways rain in Iceland.

Universal Pictures

The real secret weapon of the film—when it came to beauty, that is—was natural argan oil. Vats of it. “One of our hairstylists [on set] has a farm that grinds the argan nuts," Casny explains, "and so we had this gallon of brilliant virgin argan oil that we put in little containers.” The argan oil was used on Odysseus and his men, on Telemachus, and on the 1,300 background actors that Casny and Abel’s teams were responsible for. Adds Casny, “It keeps the hair wet looking; you can spray water on it all day and it doesn’t dry out.”

There was also a lot of dirt on set. “There wasn’t a single scene in the film in which the characters didn’t have varying levels of ingrained dirt,” says Abel, who had the products custom-made, ensuring they had a “sheer, natural quality,” plus being “waterproof.” “Every sequence and place has different colors and textures of dirt, too,” she adds. “This was all researched in detail and products were custom-made to match the red and pale sands of Troy, the black and gray tones in Hades, the green and brown tones with the Laestrygonians, and the white pale sands of Calypso.”

Casny and her team matched the makeup department’s dirt, and for one of the film’s most visually striking scenes—when Odysseus and his men land on the shores of Hades (actually a black-sand beach in Iceland)—that meant getting dirty themselves. In addition to mixing black pigment into inexpensive hair gel, the team also sifted the black sand into finer and coarser granules. “We mixed the fine sand into the hair gel as well," Casny explains, "and then I would put the coarser pieces on my hand and stick them on the surface of the hair to get that crusty effect of Icelandic sand.”

Universal PicturesDepicting the passage of time

Both Homer, in the epic poem, and Nolan, for the film, play around with time, telling the story of Odysseus’s 20-year journey home in a nonlinear fashion. On camera, hair and makeup was integral to making this clear to the audience. For Penelope, Abel “needed to…create a beauty look that was youthful and vibrant, as well as a beauty look that was over-aging makeup,” she says, calling out the Typology Glow Drops as a key product for young Penelope. “Illumination, specific cheek placement, and the use of age spots helped tell the story of Penelope’s journey.”

For Odysseus, Casny painted Damon’s hair brown for his scenes during the Battle of Troy, and then glued loose gray pieces into his natural hair for the scenes when his character is meant to be 20 years older.

John Leguizamo’s hair was dyed white for the film, a process that took multiple sessions.

Universal Pictures

John Leguizamo’s character, Eumaeus, who is Odysseus’s faithful servant and swineherd, was another character who required significant aging in the film—and with his jet-black hair, presented Casny with a Herculean task. Bleaching very dark hair white needs to be done over multiple days (weeks, even) and requires the utmost care to avoid causing damage or breakage. Unfortunately, the team didn’t have the luxury of time. After two rounds of bleach, Leguizamo’s hair still had a yellow tinge to it (again, very normal during the bleaching process), so Casny and her team broke out Fanola purple shampoo, an Italian product that’s "really strong and can cut the yellow,” and Kérastase purple shampoo to remove the brassiness, relying on silver art pens for touch-ups on set.

During a break in Leguizamo's filming, he returned home to New York for a month. “I gave his wife bottles of Olaplex No. 5, Olaplex conditioner, Olaplex leave-in, and told her to make sure he used them diligently,” Casny says with a laugh. He did, and when he returned to set in Los Angeles, Casny was finally able to bleach him to the perfect, bright white shade.

Anne Hathaway, as Penelope, stands in front of her servant Melantho, played by Mia Goth.

Universal PicturesDenoting status and telling a backstory

Throughout the film, hair and makeup are used to denote status. Servants' hair is left simple, uniform, and unadorned, as opposed to the intricate, individualistic styles of kings and queens. Even among the royals, though, the beauty sheds light on their differences.

Penelope’s look, for example, is elegant and restrained. “One thing we were thinking is that she’s trying to stay put-together because she thinks Odysseus is going to come home any minute, but she also doesn’t want to give the impression to her suit[or]s, ‘I’m available,’” explains Casny, who decided on a series of center-parted updos for Hathaway. “She had about seven changes total, and I had a drawer full of braids and things, so every day she came in and we just did our thing, making it a little different for each scene, all staying in that simple, classic aesthetic.” A bit of Davines hairspray and a Mason Pearson brush were part of Casny’s styling arsenal for Penelope.

This is in direct contrast to Helen’s more opulent, elaborate beauty looks. (If you look at the castles of Ithaca and Sparta in the film, you’ll also notice the same contrast in architecture.) Nyong’o’s skin is vibrant and luminous, and Abel created a custom-made contour that “gave her skin dimension without looking like modern makeup.”

For Helen’s hair, everything was based on Nyong’o’s own sisterlocks, which were cut into a bob shape. Wanting to add lots of length—inspired by photos they found of traditional African braids—Nyong’o had 50-inch sisterlocks made in Kenya for the film. “They went down to her calves,” recalls Casny, who latch-hooked the extensions to the ends of Nyong’o’s sisterlocked bob. “She wanted to salute her heritage with the look, leaning into African queens [of the time,] as opposed to the Greek aesthetic.”