HistoryExtra Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast 2026-10-17T15:47:56.000Z https://www.historyextra.com/topic/tv-and-radio/feed/atom Kev Lochun <![CDATA[“I wouldn’t recommend anyone attempt Everest”: Tenzing director Jennifer Peedom on Everest queues, reclaiming lost narratives and dropping Loki into a crevasse]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/tenzing-movie-everest-jennifer-peeden-interview/ 2026-10-17T15:47:56.000Z 2026-10-16T23:01:09.000Z Tenzing Norgay was half of the duo who made it to ‘the roof of the world’ when he completed a historic first ascent of Mount Everest alongside Edmund Hillary in 1953 – and by all accounts when they stepped onto the summit, they did so together. But when the accolades were handed out, you might think he was the lesser party.
New Zealander Hillary received a knighthood; so too did the expedition’s leader, British Army officer John Hunt. But Tenzing, a man who not only made it to the summit but was the expedition’s sirdar (head sherpa) – responsible for all the logistics on the mountain that made the ascent possible – was only offered the George Medal, a civilian honour conceived to mark acts of heroism during the Blitz.
- Read more | Tenzing Norgay: the Sherpa mountaineer who first conquered Everest
The popular narrative that followed in the ensuing decades was that Hillary had summited Everest (referred to increasingly by one of its original names, Chomolungma) and that Tenzing was there. It’s one of the many misconceptions surrounding the man that director Jennifer Peedom seems to hope to dispel in her first dramatic feature Tenzing.
Peedom is no stranger to the Himalayas, having started as a camera operator on Himalayan expeditions before making films of her own – fans of mountain movies may well remember her 2015 film Sherpa, which documented the real stories from the Sherpa community in the aftermath of a 2014 avalanche on the Khumbu Icefall that caused a number of fatalities. Just as Sherpa was, Tenzing is thoughtful and reflective, aiming to foreground Norgay in his own story for the first time.
Tom Hiddleston and Willem Dafoe are the biggest names in the cast, taking on the roles of Hillary and Hunt, but its star is undoubtedly Genden Phuntsok – a Chinese actor of Tibetan descent – as Norgay.
His casting reflects another lesser-known fact – the most famous sherpa in the world was not an ethnic Sherpa, but the son of a Tibetan yak herder who came to Nepal and later moved to Darjeeling seeking work among the expeditions. ‘Tenzing Norgay’ wasn’t even the name he was born with; that was the one given to him later.
Peedom’s Tenzing is the story of how a young boy looked up at the mountain revered as Chomolungma – the mother goddess – and dreamed of what it would mean to stand on what is quite literally hallowed ground.
We caught up with the director for an exclusive interview after the film’s London premiere to find out more.
The 1953 ascent of Everest is such a well-known narrative, but often one dominated by the idea of heroic European conquest, and I wondered what you want to reveal about this story by focusing it through Tenzing’s perspective?
Jennifer Peedom: I spent a lot of my early career working as a camera operator and a documentary filmmaker in the Himalayas, and for me what was always interesting and part of the attraction of the place was the culture and the Sherpa people.
One of my earliest films about the Sherpas [Sherpa, 2015] was because I was really interested in this idea that mountaineering for them is a job, but Chomolungma is a deity that they worship, and that the landscape means something spiritual and very different to what it means to western climbers who come and climb the mountain. I wanted audiences to see that point of view.
I’ve heard you say of Sherpa that you “weren’t making a climbing film, you were making a story about a people”. Tenzing feels like it’s doing a bit of both?
JP: The reason I wanted to make this film about Tenzing was first to redress that historical balance, because he’d never really been at the centre. He was more of a supporting character in the story.
But it was also [about] everything that Tenzing had been through in his life just to get to the starting line of Everest, let alone ascend the mountain. That story to me was fascinating – the sheer number of obstacles he had to overcome just to get to that place.
He’d been through so much in his life. He’d been exiled from Tibet to Nepal as a young boy. His family had had to leave [him] while they were looking for work just to survive. He was an outsider in that community – the classic underdog in many ways. He was underestimated his entire life.
It was about that as much as anything else, about showing the family the cultural sacrifices that he had to make along the way to fulfil this childhood dream.
I was really taken with the character that Caitríona Balfe plays, Jill Henderson. She is such a big part of the British mountaineering story overall in Nepal, but also a big part of Tenzing’s story as well.
JP: It was really she that convinced him to take on the [British 1953] expedition. He genuinely had hesitations. He had an extreme loyalty to the Swiss, who he’d climbed with the year before, and they had tried and failed. He was depleted. He was exhausted. He’d promised his family he wasn’t going to go back again, and then this invitation came.
It was Henderson and Raymond Lambert [the Swiss mountaineer with whom Tenzing had climbed to within 237 metres of the summit in 1952] who colluded to convince Tenzing to go, because they knew that this was probably going to be the one. They knew that this was his moment and that he deserved it more than anyone else.
Lambert wrote him a letter. Henderson campaigned to him endlessly until he eventually agreed to go. And I just felt like, what an amazing woman, who had such a remarkable part in history that had also never been talked about in the traditional narratives of the telling of Everest, yet she played such a significant role.
There’s an ongoing conversation right now as to the state of climbing on Mount Everest, and we’ve all seen these mind-boggling photos of the queues. What are your thoughts on the responsibilities we have as storytellers when we’re discussing a mountain that represents a peak of human endeavour, but also is a place of spirituality?
JP: For whatever reason, Everest has become this symbol of human achievement, and it’s become a bucket list ambition. It attracts people, and no matter what happens on Everest, the worse the disasters, the more people seem to come the next year to test themselves. And I think that says something about western culture in some ways, and I find it interesting, though I don’t really understand it myself.
- Read more | Race to the top of the world: the story of the 1953 conquest of Everest
It’s like a proving ground. And I would suggest that there are other ways to do that than to come to Everest and add to the traffic jam that is that mountain these days. I would not recommend anyone attempt to go there and climb, really, because it is dangerous due to the crowds. There are better ways to achieve a dream than standing in a line to put your foot on the summit of the highest mountain in the world.
That difficulty of climbing a mountain like Everest was really evident in Tenzing: the laboured breathing and heavy steps were so evocative. How important was it to give a sense that this isn’t a walk in the park?
JP: Really important, and it’s a very difficult thing to portray in cinema because it’s a feeling. Someone described it to me once as running on a treadmill and breathing through a straw. You just can’t get enough oxygen into your lungs, and so your legs are burning. You’re sort of taking a step and then having about three breaths and then finding the strength to take another step.
It’s enormously challenging and the higher you get, the worse that gets. Trying to portray that is difficult, but I’m glad you picked up on the breath. We spent a lot of time with sound design working with breath because that’s the thing keeping you alive.
On the spirituality point, there was one scene I wanted to ask you about: at one of the high camps there’s a mutiny among the Sherpas that Tenzing resolves, and it concludes with a blessing using rice. I wonder if you can tell us what we’re seeing there, and more broadly how you brought the authenticity of Sherpa culture into the movie?
JP: That really came from my own experiences with Sherpas on mountains and hearing their stories. That scene where they say [of Chomolungma] that they’re too frightened to go further because now that we’re up at the South Col, we’re literally stabbing our spikes into her shoulders? They were conversations that I’d heard in camps on Everest.
- Watch now | How did Mount Everest get its name?
And one of the Sherpas in that scene – his name is Balu – was actually our expedition doctor who played that role. He also said, “Jen, these are conversations I had with Sherpas like one year ago on Everest”. So it was about bringing all of those experiences that I’d had in conversations with Sherpas over many years about what the mountain means to them, and trying to help a broader audience understand that, to them, it is a living embodiment of a deity, of a goddess.
For them, there is a quite literal feeling that the landscape is inseparable from the spirituality within it. It was really important to me to portray that perspective because the film is really from Tenzing’s point of view. I know he had a conversation like that with the Sherpas on that Everest expedition.
He had the challenge of not only climbing the mountain himself, but he was leading the Sherpa team and was responsible for getting all of the supplies. So he had this kind of double job that he had to do, and he was under enormous pressure. And he was juggling the demands of two very different competing groups. And the Sherpas did fear the unknown. Tenzing was unique in the sense that he wanted to climb, but he also chose to see the goddess not as something to be feared, but to be revered, and he was unusual in that, and he was a pioneer in that way.
There is another way to see this. We don’t need to fear her. If we ask for her permission, ask for her blessing, she will grant us passage, she will keep us safe. And that’s what that scene is about. They’re throwing rice, which is an offering to Chomolungma. And I think as you see in the film, it gave the Sherpas a sense of peace that it was okay, and of course it was. There were no accidents on that expedition. There were no deaths. It was remarkable.
It’s a very beautiful scene. I know you know Sherpa culture well from your previous works, including your 2015 documentary Sherpa. How much did your documentarian background inform how you approached Tenzing?
JP: You probably can tell from the film that we were shooting on real mountains in real landscapes. And I guess for me, that was what I knew. It seemed insane to do it any other way because part of the story is the landscape, and so to fake that didn’t make any sense to me.
I wanted the audience, but also the actors, to experience those landscapes and those cultures, and I wanted to show that when you shoot in those communities, you’re shooting with people who live in those communities, and that brings this beautiful level of authenticity.
And then the actors themselves cannot help but be affected by that. You know, many of them have talked about the fact that they didn’t really need to do a lot of acting in these scenes because when Tom Hiddleston is down that crevasse climbing out of it, he’s really down a crevasse climbing out of it. It was like, “Okay, Tom, start climbing.” He’s really doing it. That was the point.
- Read more | “Just like us and not at all”: what Tom Hiddleston wants us to remember about Pompeii
I wanted to ask you about that specific moment, where Tom falls into that crevasse. How does that actually happen?
JP: It was a trapdoor that we had set up, so when he landed in that spot, the trapdoor got pulled and he had the safety rope. When he’s hanging in the crevasse, that is just the main safety rope – so the picture rope became the safety rope, and we did a lot of work to make sure that we could make the ropes look period appropriate, but they’re also proper safety ropes. That’s how we did it. He just did it for real.
But you built a trapdoor on a Nepalese mountain?
JP: That’s in New Zealand. All of the technical climbing with the actors from Everest Base Camp up was in New Zealand [Ed’s note: everything below Base Camp was filmed in Nepal]. And those mountains really are as big from bottom to top as the Himalayas. They just start at almost sea level in the Southern Alps.
All of the actual aerials of Everest itself, [they’re] the real mountain, the real [Khumbu] icefall. But then we would shoot the specific scenes, in real crevasses and icefalls and ridges and faces in New Zealand. And the summit of Everest, we shot on the summit of one of the highest mountains in New Zealand. And you can see the awe and the emotion on the actors’ faces, because they’re standing on one of the highest mountains in New Zealand looking down at the world below them.
Tenzing is streaming on Apple TV from 16 October and is being shown in select cinemas now
]]> Lauren Good <![CDATA[I tried on THE dress from Pride and Prejudice. Here's how it felt]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/i-tried-on-the-dress-from-pride-and-prejudice-video/ 2026-10-08T08:31:53.000Z 2026-10-09T08:30:05.000Z What's it like to wear some of the most iconic dresses from period drama?
HistoryExtra's Lauren Good visits the costume house Cosprop in London, one of the world’s leading costumiers for the film, television and theatre industries, to try on some very special garments.
Dressed by women's specialist costumier Clara Drumez, Lauren hears the techniques and tricks behind your favourite period drama costumes, and how they're used to bring Austen's work and Regency-era history to life on screen.
Cosprop is currently holding an exhibition, Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop, at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, where you can see for yourself the most iconic costumes they've created. It runs until 16 January 2027.
View Green Video on the source website]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[We asked Hugh Jackman what it was like to play Robin Hood – and his answer was surprisingly dark]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/hugh-jackman-interview-death-of-robin-hood/ 2026-09-18T14:34:27.000Z 2026-09-18T14:34:27.000Z For the new film The Death of Robin Hood, Hugh Jackman has stepped into the muddy boots of the titular legendary character – one who has captured the imagination as both outlaw and hero. But as Jackman accepts, the historical roots of the character are incredibly murky. For him, this is a positive, not a negative.
Indeed, Jackman is no stranger to mythic roles. And, as a self-proclaimed history enthusiast, he relishes the opportunity to breathe new life into such an ambiguous and storied figure. Jackman suggests that – while some claim Robin Hood was a real outlaw – the legend’s true power lies precisely in these folkloric qualities. “This character feels so larger than life that being able to put my particular stamp on it is a privilege.”
But any fans expecting a light, adventurous romp may be surprised. This new cinematic interpretation is a departure from familiar rousing tales of green tights and Merry Men.
“We find him at the beginning of this movie basically wanting to die,” Jackman explains.
That mindset sets the tone, and the rest of the film follows suit. Grappling with the aftermath of a life of violence and crime, Jackman’s version of the character is a darker, more introspective take.
The role, Jackman suggests, is less a comparison with previous portrayals and more about inhabiting a character weighed down by years of legend and loss. This transformation was physical as well as emotional: “When I put on the hair, makeup and costume for the first time, I could feel the heaviness of that life.”
Would Hugh Jackman survive the medieval world?
When asked how he would cope in this version of Robin Hood’s world, he admitted he would fare poorly without modern comforts. He added, “I’m soft to the core. I can put up a tent, but that’s about it. I can’t start a fire. I’m not sure exactly how to find water. I think I’d be pretty much dead.”
His own survival prospects may be questionable, but Jackman sees at least one obvious advantage to having Robin Hood around. Asked about the character’s greatest “green flag,” he quips, “Hunting. Helpful, right? If you’re hungry, he’s the guy you want.” And his biggest red flag? “Commitment.”
- Read more | The many faces of Robin Hood
In fact, it might be the early modern, post-enlightenment world that would suit Jackman better than the Middle Ages. “If I was born into some kind of station, royalty or wealth, I’d be good… until I got a toothache. I don’t think I’d survive the dentist without Novocaine.”
That said, Jackman did pick up at least one practical skill from his time on set: “I now know how to make a bow and arrow.”
The Death of Robin Hood is in cinemas now.
]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[Who killed Robin Hood? The dark legends that inspired the new Hugh Jackman blockbuster]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/how-did-robin-hood-die-the-death-of-robin-hood-interview/ 2026-09-18T14:34:58.000Z 2026-09-18T14:32:57.000Z Robin Hood has been a fixture of English folklore for centuries, most often portrayed as a green-clad outlaw stealing from the rich, giving to the poor, and outwitting the Sheriff of Nottingham with his band of Merry Men. It’s an image that’s a far cry from what audiences see in The Death of Robin Hood.
In the film from writer and director Michael Sarnoski, Hugh Jackman’s Robin Hood is an aged man worn down by years of violence and crime, grappling with the fallout of his decisions, when he is offered one final chance at redemption.
This different vision of the outlaw begs the question: is it possible to capture an authentic, accurate version of Robin Hood? How do you separate fact from fiction?
How did Robin Hood die?
The earliest surviving medieval accounts that mention Robin Hood give little detail as to the character’s death, but early modern retellings developed a more dramatic ending.
In one of the best-known traditions, from versions of a 17th-century ballad known as Robin Hood's Death or Robin Hoode his Death, Robin and Little John travelled to Kirklees Priory, where he was then betrayed by his cousin, the prioress. While bloodletting an unwell Robin, she deliberately took too much blood, leaving him fatally weakened. In one version, Robin is also stabbed by his enemy – and the prioress’s lover – Sir Roger of Doncaster, otherwise known as ‘Red Roger’.
With his last ounces of strength, Robin is said to have shot one final arrow from his deathbed, asking Little John to be buried wherever it landed. Although there is no firm historical evidence that Robin Hood was a real individual (let alone where he may have died) this tale has helped establish Kirklees as his supposed final resting place.
It was this narrative of Robin Hood’s death that inspired Sarnoski. “I had been fascinated by the death of Robin Hood story since I was a little kid,” he explained. “It was so surprising that this man of adventure ends up [dying] in this sunlit church. The intimacy of that story always struck me.”
Hero or villain?
In the early modern retellings of Robin Hood’s death, there is a sharp dichotomy between the two main characters: the prioress is a scheming villainess to Robin’s ailing hero. Sarnoski has instead made the decision to flip this perception on its head. However, that’s not to say that the film’s approach to characterisation is not rooted in historical imagination.
Sarnoski looked to figures like Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century German abbess and polymath, as inspiration for the prioress. Similarly, Sarnoski says that his Robin is far from the unblemished hero. Instead, his characterisation is rooted in the question: “If Robin wasn’t this goodly hero, what would life as a medieval bandit have been like? How brutal might that have been?”
- Read more | The many faces of Robin Hood
Rather than drawing on the later, more romanticised versions of the Robin Hood myth, Sarnoski grounded the feeling of the film in the earliest surviving documented ballads – including, among others, A Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin Hood and the Potter, and Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne. These sources provide a glimpse into a more morally ambiguous Robin: “They are mischievous, very violent stories about this outlaw who has a moral code, but it’s not as solidified as [that of the stories] we are familiar with nowadays”.
An evolving story
Indeed, there are many elements of Robin Hood’s story that have changed over time. “A lot was added later on,” Sarnoski notes, referring to familiar tropes such as Robin’s connection to Richard the Lionheart and the idea of stealing from the rich to give to the poor: “That was not in the original texts”.
Equally, instead of giving to the poor and needy, Robin’s main focus was originally targeting corrupt clergy and members of the nobility – something that was expanded upon over time. Additionally, he was no scorned noble, but a yeoman. Even fair Maid Marian was a somewhat later invention.
However, what is clear in these early ballads is the folk hero’s impressive skills at archery.
Fittingly, one of the new film’s central themes is the uncertainty of truth in legend – a question that is regularly raised when it comes to the story of Robin Hood. As Sarnoski explained: “What would happen if you outlived your time as an outlaw and were seeing your own legends start to become these folktales? Even these characters are unsure about which of these things are true and which aren’t.”
“If we’re too precious about our stories, we can define ourselves too much by those things and that can be dangerous. I want people to think about the stories they tell themselves, why they tell them, and to be able to take a step back and think about the place of them [in their understanding of the past]”.
The Death of Robin Hood is in cinemas now.
]]> Danny Bird <![CDATA[Frida Kahlo: life of the week]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/frida-kahlo-life-of-the-week/ 2026-08-25T10:17:24.000Z 2026-08-25T10:17:24.000Z The arresting gaze, the stark monobrow, the intricate ribbons woven through the dark hair – Frida Kahlo's unmistakable image is recognised around the world today. Yet the woman behind the vivid self-portraits was far more complex than the icon she became.
In conversation with Danny Bird, historian Patience Schell explores how trauma, politics and extraordinary artistic vision transformed Kahlo into one of the most influential cultural figures of the modern age.
]]> Rob Attar <![CDATA[Hedy Lamarr: life of the week]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/hedy-lamarr-life-of-the-week/ 2026-08-18T08:31:03.000Z 2026-08-18T08:30:56.000Z Hedy Lamarr starred in dozens of movies, but her life may have been more dramatic than any of them.
She was the teenage actor who portrayed the first character to have an on-screen orgasm. The Austrian Jew whose husband sold arms to the fascists. The refugee from Nazism who became a Hollywood megastar. And the pioneering inventor whose work anticipated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
In today's episode Professor Ruth Barton, Fellow Emeritus in Film Studies at Trinity College shares Hedy's remarkable story with Rob Attar.
]]> Hilary Mitchell <![CDATA[What is 'Zeus's Law'? The ancient moral code of The Odyssey explained]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/zeus-law-moral-code-odyssey-christopher-nolan/ 2026-08-18T00:01:04.000Z 2026-08-18T00:00:47.000Z Warning: this article contains spoilers for the new Christopher Nolan movie
Few people will leave a screening of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey without the phrase “Zeus’s Law” echoing in their minds. In the film, it’s described as a sacred rule that, whenever a stranger arrives, the host must first offer them food, drink and shelter before asking who they are, or even why they have come.
Early on, Antinous, played with teeth-clenching, borderline-psychotic intensity by Robert Pattinson, openly challenges this principle by berating Telemachus for welcoming a ragged beggar into Odysseus’s hall. The irony, of course, is that Antinous himself is a guest in the household, one of the many suitors who have spent years feasting at Odysseus’s expense while shamelessly exploiting their absent host’s generosity.
- Read more | Is The Odyssey based on a true story? The movie's historical accuracy explained
However, “Zeus’s Law” isn’t a phrase found in Homer, or at least not in standard translations. It’s a modern way of expressing a concept for today’s audiences. The actual name for the sacred code that governed the relationship between host and guest was xenia.
Xenia was the expectation that strangers should be welcomed, fed, sheltered and treated with respect – and that guests, in return, would honour their hosts rather than exploit their generosity.
That was because hospitality was under the protection of none other than Zeus himself. As Zeus Xenios (“Zeus, protector of guests and strangers”), the king of the gods watched over the sacred bond between host and visitor, rewarding those who honoured it and punishing those who violated it.
Almost every major episode in Odysseus’s journey home, from the man-eating cyclops Polyphemus to the slaughter of Penelope’s suitors, can be understood through the lens of xenia.
Here’s what we know about this real-life “Zeus’s Law”...
How old is xenia?
No one knows when the custom of xenia began, but it almost certainly predates Homer by many centuries. The Odyssey is thought to have been composed around the late eighth or early seventh century BC, yet it tells stories set during the Mycenaean Bronze Age, several hundred years earlier. In these stories, the rules of hospitality are presented as ancient, familiar and universally understood.
- Read more | I’m an expert on ancient Greece – here’s what you need to know before you watch The Odyssey
Many archaeologists and historians believe that xenia developed in response to the practical realities of life in the ancient Mediterranean. Travellers crossed dangerous mountains and seas without modern conveniences like hotels, or even reliable maps, meaning they often relied on the kindness of strangers.
Welcoming weary travellers into your home helped create networks of trust between families and communities that could last for generations. In many ways, xenia functioned as an early form of international friendship, connecting communities in a world without passports, embassies or formal treaties.
This is reflected in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. “Zeus’s Law” isn’t presented simply as a lesson in good manners, but as one of the foundations of civilisation itself. The film echoes the ancient Greek belief that the bonds between hosts and guests helped hold society together in an unpredictable and often dangerous world. Without xenia, civilisation itself could collapse.
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Examples of xenia in the Odyssey
Once you understand xenia, it becomes clear that this is the moral framework underpinning almost every major episode of the Odyssey. Time and again, Homer asks the same question: how should a host treat a stranger, and how should a guest behave in return?
Perhaps the greatest violation of xenia in the Odyssey comes not from monsters like Polyphemus, but from human beings. For years, the suitors occupy Odysseus’s palace while he is presumed dead, feasting on his food, drinking his wine and using up his resources as they compete for Penelope’s hand in marriage.
- Read more | Greek gods and goddesses: 15 of the most important deities
Rather than respecting their host’s household, they exploit it. Their bloody, John Wick-style slaughter at Odysseus’s hands might seem shocking, but within the moral universe of the poem it is presented as justice. The suitors have repeatedly violated the sacred obligations of xenia and must therefore face the consequences.
Why does xenia still matter today?
More than 2,700 years after the Odyssey was first written down, xenia continues to resonate because it speaks to timeless questions about trust, generosity and our responsibilities towards strangers.
Few modern societies regard hospitality as a sacred obligation enforced by Zeus, but many of the values behind xenia remain deeply familiar: welcoming guests into our homes, treating them well (and making sure you give them the good towels), and showing others respect, compassion and kindness regardless of where they come from or their social status.
That is why Christopher Nolan’s film places such emphasis on “Zeus’s Law”. It isn’t just a memorable line of dialogue, it’s the central theme. It’s also a reminder that, in Homer’s world, the way people treated strangers revealed their character more clearly than almost anything else.
Don’t miss our podcast series exploring the history of Homer’s Odyssey, featuring award-winning classicist and author Daisy Dunn. HistoryExtra members can listen to all four episodes now
]]> Hilary Mitchell <![CDATA[Who are those giant soldiers in The Odyssey? The Laestrygonians explained]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/odyssey-giant-soldiers-laestrygonians-christopher-nolan/ 2026-08-18T07:30:33.000Z 2026-08-18T00:00:07.000Z Warning: this article contains spoilers for the new Christopher Nolan movie
If you left a recent screening of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey with questions about the identity of the towering, metal-clad creatures who descend on Odysseus and his crew shortly after their escape from the Cyclops Polyphemus, you’re not alone.
Nolan deliberately reveals little about these monstrous figures. This means audiences experience the same shock and confusion as the film’s weary Greek sailors, who land on an island hoping for a warm welcome, hospitality and supplies, but are met with cruelty and violence. In the film, the encounter begins with the unsettling sight of a strange, adult-sized child, whose piercing scream summons an army of implacable, merciless warriors. Within moments, the ferocious horde lays waste to Odysseus’s men, forcing the few survivors to flee back to the sea.
- Read more | Is The Odyssey based on a true story? The movie’s historical accuracy explained
The film leaves their identity largely unexplained, but Homer’s original Odyssey tells us much more, and gives them a name: the Laestrygonians. Here’s what we know about them...
Who were the Laestrygonians?
One detail that’s left out of the film is the fact that, as well as being homicidal, these aggressive giants (which appear in Book 10 of Homer’s Odyssey) are also cannibals.
Their king, Antiphates, immediately reveals their true nature when he seizes one of Odysseus’s scouts and abruptly devours him. The rest of the giants soon emerge from the surrounding cliffs, pelting the Greek fleet with huge rocks while spearing sailors “like fish” before carrying them away to eat. Of Odysseus’s 12 ships, only his own escapes. It’s one of the single greatest catastrophes he suffers during the entire epic.
Although monsters such as Polyphemus receive more attention in modern retellings, the Laestrygonians inflict far greater damage. Their attack marks a turning point in the Odyssey: after escaping their island, Odysseus is no longer leading a mighty fleet – just a single, battered vessel carrying the last survivors of a voyage that has become increasingly hopeless.
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How are they different from the Cyclopes?
If Odysseus had a drachma for every time he’d encountered giant cannibals on distant islands, he’d have two drachmas – which isn’t a lot, but it’s strange that it happened twice.
As a result, it’s easy to confuse the Laestrygonians with the Cyclopes, but in the original poem, Homer presents them very differently. The Cyclopes are a race of one-eyed shepherds who live largely in isolation, with Polyphemus occupying a cave by himself. His encounter with Odysseus becomes a battle of wits, ending with the hero blinding the Cyclops before escaping beneath a flock of sheep.
- Read more | How the Odyssey’s Cyclops became the ancient Greeks’ worst nightmare
The Laestrygonians, by contrast, live together in what appears to be an organised city ruled by King Antiphates. As well as utilising brute strength, they also overwhelm Odysseus through sheer numbers.
What do the Laestrygonians represent?
Like many of the villains and monsters in Greek mythology, the Laestrygonians aren’t just a scary tale to frighten the audience. Throughout the Odyssey, every strange island explores a different moral challenge, like the Lotus-Eaters’ seductive forgetfulness and Circe’s temptations.
The Laestrygonians, meanwhile, embody a world where the sacred laws of hospitality have collapsed altogether. In Greek culture, offering food and protection to travellers (xenia, referred to as “Zeus’s Law” in the film) was considered sacred.
The Laestrygonians invert this tradition completely. Their attack also shows just how vulnerable Odysseus really is. This complicated, wily man can outwit a single Cyclops, but he can’t defeat an entire race of giants.
Were the Laestrygonians based on real people?
No one knows for certain if the Laestrygonians represent a real ancient culture. Ancient readers generally accepted the Laestrygonians as mythical beings, but later writers attempted to identify where they might have lived, placing them at various locations around Sicily and Sardinia.
One of the most intriguing modern theories links them to the Nuragic civilisation of Bronze Age Sardinia. Between around c1600 and c1200 BC, the Nuragic people built thousands of massive stone towers, known as nuraghi, that still dominate the island’s landscape today, which may have helped inspire later stories about a powerful race of giants living on a remote island.
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Supporters of the theory often reference the Giants of Mont’e Prama, a collection of imposing, monumental limestone sculptures discovered in Sardinia in 1974. Dating to the ninth or eighth century BC, the statues depict towering archers, warriors and boxers, some standing more than two metres (6ft 6in) tall.
However, there is no direct archaeological evidence linking the Nuragic people to the Laestrygonians, and most Homeric scholars consider them to be part of the impressively creative world of the Odyssey rather than a description of a real civilisation.
Don’t miss our podcast series exploring the history of Homer’s Odyssey, featuring award-winning classicist and author Daisy Dunn. HistoryExtra members can listen to all four episodes now
]]> Mike Soutar <![CDATA[Walt Disney: Cartoon villain or genius leader?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/walt-disney-cartoon-villain-or-genius-leader/ 2026-08-19T10:33:08.000Z 2026-08-17T10:32:24.000Z Few brands are as famous as Disney. From animation blockbusters to theme parks and TV series, it’s a name with enormous cultural cachet around the world. But what do we know about Walt Disney himself? Was he the avuncular, creative genius of his public persona, or do some of the darker tales about the man – of his ruthlessness and need for control – have some truth to them?
In this episode, Christopher Holliday – senior lecturer in liberal arts and visual cultures education at King’s College London – tells Mike Soutar about the man who came to represent an entire industry, and asks whether his story has lessons for creative leaders in the modern world.
Watch below or listen to the full interview, ad-free:
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For more on the life of Walt Disney, don’t miss our curated collection of articles, podcasts and videos
]]> Kev Lochun <![CDATA[Inside Pompeii with Tom Hiddleston: the hidden detail that most people miss]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/inside-pompeii-tom-hiddleston-video/ 2026-08-05T15:16:53.000Z 2026-08-05T15:16:53.000Z Tom Hiddleston, star of Loki and The Night Manager, wants to challenge what you think you know about Pompeii.
His National Geographic docudrama follows three real Romans from the historical record through the disaster to ask: could anyone survive?
Ahead of the launch, HistoryExtra’s Kev Lochun sat down with the Hollywood actor to find out how ancient history reaches through time, how we tell stories of the past without making them about ourselves, and how he would have reacted if he’d been in the Forum in AD 79 when Vesuvius erupted.
National Geographic’s Pompeii: Out of Time premiered in July and is available to stream on Disney+ now.
View Green Video on the source website
For more on ancient Pompeii, don't miss Kev's four-part podcast series with Dr Jess Venner, all episodes available now
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