When Christopher Nolan began planning The Odyssey, he gave composer Ludwig Göransson an unusual constraint: no orchestra. Göransson, who had scored two previous Nolan films, leaned into the decision. "It's not like the orchestra existed back then," he told Variety.
What replaced the orchestra was more complicated. Göransson procured 35 bronze gongs of varying sizes and made them the score's percussive core. Nolan's interest in the Bronze Age setting drove the choice. To go further, Göransson traveled across several countries, recording specialists on the aulos, an ancient Greek double-pipe reed instrument, and the lyre. Neither instrument survives in playable form from antiquity. Aulos player Callum Armstrong noted he worked with two collaborators to reverse-engineer the instrument's upper mechanism, since no original reeds survived. Lyre performer Rosa Fragorapti, a musicologist, described the balancing act: "To be able to play it in a philological way, we have to do research between iconography, philological sources and personal experience," she told Variety.
Beyond the period instruments, Göransson worked with found sound. "I started to experiment with a lot of other stuff," he told Variety. "Hitting walls, hitting railings, hitting any kind of things you could find outside, like scrap metal or air conditioning units." Singer James Blake contributes vocals throughout. Rapper Travis Scott appears in the film as a bard, according to Variety, placing contemporary figures inside an ancient storytelling tradition.
Three Oscars, Two Directors
Göransson was born in Linköping, Sweden in 1984, studied at the Stockholm Royal College of Music, and moved to Los Angeles in 2007 to complete USC's Scoring for Motion Picture and Television program. His career began on television, with credits including Community, New Girl, and The Mandalorian. Feature work came through Ryan Coogler, who brought him onto Fruitvale Station in 2013, then Creed in 2015.
The scale shifted with Black Panther in 2018. To prepare, Göransson traveled to Senegal and South Africa to research West African music before composing a note of the score. The film won him his first Academy Award for Best Original Score. Oppenheimer (2023) brought a second, his second Nolan collaboration. Sinners, Coogler's 2025 Southern horror film, earned him a third at the 2026 Academy Awards. Three wins in eight years, across two of the most distinct directing voices working today.
What's Next
The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon, opened in July 2026. It is tracking as one of the season's strongest awards contenders. A further Oscar nomination for Göransson is widely projected; whether it becomes a fourth win may depend on what the rest of awards season produces.
