![]() "I think I tried to do (The Odyssey) much too soon after Gotti," he says now. Given just a few months to lose 40 pounds he had gained to play mobster John Gotti, the actor found muscling up a heady experience. The war, prolonged by meddling by the gods, lasts 10 years, ending only when the Greeks build the legendary, giant Trojan horse and hide inside the false gift, only to spring out once the horse is taken inside Troy's gates.Īngered by the gods' indifference, Odysseus claims sole credit for the victory, prompting Poseidon to keep the hero from home for an additional 10 years, buffeted from one dangerous island to another.īut for Assante, the biggest challenge wasn't making such an epic saga believable _ it was developing the physique to pull it off in the first place. I ended up going to the hospital with pneumonia when I got home."Īssante plays Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, pressed into service by King Agamemnon to join his campaign against Troy. "We worked six-day weeks, 70 to 90 hours a week, for 15 weeks. "The Odyssey was filmed under some of the most inhospitable conditions imaginable," says Assante, star of such previous films as HBO's Gotti, Q&A and The Mambo Kings. "People are just pushing for everything to be as perfect as possible."ĭirector Andre Konchalovsky's attention to detail meant the production wound up filming in Turkey, Malta and other locations, challenging the cast and crew to stay healthy and focused despite working in some of the most remote locales on Earth. "There is a demand for feature-film production values in TV now," says Graham High, who supervised creation of the Cyclops, sea monsters and a talking pig by Jim Henson's Creature Shop _ the special effects wizards who also put words in the mouth of film pig Babe. Telling the tale of a heroic Greek king cursed by the gods to spend 20 years away from his home and family, The Odyssey seems tailor-made for TV: panoramic locations, pumped-up gods, beautiful women, brutal warfare and horrifying monsters.īest of all, nobody owns the rights to the story.īut what was saved in publishing payouts, NBC spent on bringing a wide array of creatures from Greek mythology to the screen, including the one-eyed giant, Cyclops the six-headed sea monster, Scylla Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who flies on winged sandals and Poseidon, the god of the sea, who appears in angry waves. Once you see it unfold in its $40-million splendor, it's hard to imagine a work of literature better suited for TV adaptation than Homer's classic. ![]() We knew we would be damned if we did and damned if we didn't, so why not try it?" "We knew we were attempting the impossible. ![]() "You have to find the most dramatic avenue to make these characters available to an audience," adds the actor, a touch of his native Brooklyn accent coloring his words. ![]()
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