Travis Scott stopped by The Tonight Show to discuss his experience making Christopher Nolan‘s new film The Odyssey, which features his song “When I’m Home” over the end credits.
Host Jimmy Fallon noted that the film marks Scott’s first time being part of a No. 1 movie. “It feels way different,” Scott said. “Even my theater teacher from high school, they reached out to my mom. This is like another stratosphere of greatness. All the people [who] were scolding you in when you were in school, trying to make you a great human, are like, ‘You finally did something good.'”
Scott recalled working with Nolan previously on his film Tenet, again on the end credits song. But with The Odyssey, Nolan first asked Scott to act, not rap.
“My phone went off and it just said Chris and I was thinking, ‘Okay I don’t know what this is about. Maybe he wants to go to a show,'” Scott said. “So I pick up and he’s like, ‘Would you be interested in acting in a movie?’ But I didn’t think it was for him. I thought it might be for somebody else.”
The rapper described Nolan as “a real mentor of mine” and said he wanted to be part of anything the filmmaker was working on. In the film, Scott plays a Greek bard who sings about Odysseus’ victories in the Trojan War. However, he said he was “nervous as F” doing the role.
“I didn’t know that it was going to be Anne Hathaway, Tom [Holland], and Robert Pattinson,” he said. “A bunch of amazing people. And I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.” He added, “Chris is an amazing director. Everybody made me feel comfortable. I was just glad to be there and to watch him.”
Scott said it wasn’t hard to keep his role a secret, but it was hard to “make everybody believe that I did this.” “I didn’t want people to think I got placed in this,” he said.
The musician hoped Nolan would ask him to write an end credits song, but that request didn’t come up until Nolan had a cut of the movie. He worked with producer Ludwig Göransson, who also did the score, and James Blake to write and record “When I’m Home.” A video for the track, directed by Scott, will come out next week.
Nolan previously explained why he cast Scott — who contributed the Goransson-produced “The Plan” to Tenet — in The Odyssey. “I cast [Scott] because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap,” Nolan said.
Scott joined a small but notable list of musicians cast by Nolan over the years. David Bowie famously portrayed inventor Nikola Tesla in the 2006 film The Prestige, while Harry Styles took on the role of Alex in Dunkirk, marking one of the singer’s earliest major acting performances.
