Tom Holland’s Used To Spidey Stunts. Why The Odyssey Sword Fights Were Way More ‘Dangerous’

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Tom Holland is a pro when it comes to stunt sequences. He’s been doing stunt choreography and fight scenes for a decade now, and I can’t think of anyone who has done more cinematic backflips in their movie career. However, apparently The Odyssey came with new challenges that the actor had never experienced before, and he recently explained what these sword fight sequences made things feel so much more dangerous. In a recent interview with the cast of The Odyssey for Entertainment Weekly, the all-star group of actors talked about what made shooting this film so much more intense than their experiences in the past. All of the actors had experience with action sequences before, like the memorable fight sequences from the Jason Bourne movies with Matt Damon, or the stunt scenes with Anne Hathaway in the Dark Knight Rises. However with three Spider-Man movies and three Avengers movies under his belt, Holland might take the cake as the most experienced. He joked that his Spidy-skills wouldn't have worked for this film though, saying: Doing the Spider-Man stuff, I think if I jumped and landed in a deep squat in my armor, [Matt Damon] probably would’ve been like ‘What are you doing’The armor in The Odyssey scenes wasn’t the only thing that set the fight sequences in the film apart from Spider-Man, though. Holland explained that the sword battles in the buzzy 2026 movie release felt incredibly different than anything he’d experienced before, and a lot of this had to do with the way that director Christopher Nolan directs scenes like this, where he runs through it completely without cutting. Holland explained: [Nolan’s] style of shooting those scenes is really different to what I’m used to. You would have us run the entire fight all the way through. It just brings a rawness and an edginess and a dirtiness to the fight. It’s not clean, and it feels really dangerous.I can imagine how this could be incredibly daunting. When swords are being moved around everywhere in a stunt sequence without any cutting, it must feel very scary. Even though this is all movie magic, with intricate stunt choreography and safety precautions all being taken, it doesn’t take away from the fact that heavy, pointy movie props are moving around everywhere. The lack of cutting makes everything feel way more real and less clean than a Marvel movie. Nolan also admitted that the weapons used in a film like this makes things more dangerous, saying: Stakes are raised enormously with these kinds of weapons.The danger behind the whole thing translates so well on screen, so the shooting style was definitely the right move for scenes like this. It brings a sense of grandiosity as well as danger, and Nolan’s insistence on actually using hordes of extras for his battles instead of CGI grounds the film even more. Comparing Marvel sequences with The Odyssey feels a bit unfair, but with a shared cast, it’s hard not to. There is something so gritty about these sequences that work so perfectly for The Odyssey, and allows the characters, like Holland's, to actually feel the stakes of the film. You can see Tom Holland in The Odyssey, which is currently in theaters nationwide in IMAX and on 70mm. The Odyssey is being lauded by critics, so make sure to check it out on the biggest screen possible while you still can. Fans of the Peter Parker actor can also see him in the MCU Spider-Man films, which are all streaming with a Disney+ subscription, with the latest heading to theaters on July 31, 2026.