Jon Bernthal refused to be 'broken' filming The Odyssey's Trojan horse sequence

Jon Bernthal refused to let the claustrophobic Trojan horse sequence break him while filming The Odyssey.

In Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of Homer's classic, The Walking Dead actor plays the King of Sparta, Menelaus, alongside Matt Damon as Odysseus, the King of Ithaca.

To invade the city of Troy, they hide inside a giant wooden horse left on a beach, partially submerged in water. Dozen of men were crammed together uncomfortably inside the horse - including Nolan himself - to shoot the claustrophobic sequence.

As the character at the bottom of the horse, Bernthal was neck-deep in freezing water. Noticing that he was shivering, Nolan suggested pulling him out of the horse, but the actor refused.

"You ain't breaking me, Chris. There's nothing you can do to break me," he recalled screaming in that moment, telling The Hollywood Reporter that the Oppenheimer director kept filming at his request.

Damon noted that Bernthal's attitude while shooting that scene - which took place only a few weeks into production - set the tone for everybody else throughout the months-long process.

"That was the first example of somebody pushing past what they thought they could do. Nobody in that horse was ever going to complain for the next five months about anything because of what we saw," The Bourne Identity star explained. "It set the tone for the rest of us and how we needed to show up for each other and for the movie."

Elsewhere in the interview, The Punisher actor shared his acting philosophy and his desire to take big swings and leave it "all on the field".

"I want to take big swings, I don't want to ever be afraid of striking out, I don't want to play it safe," he stated. "I don't want to inch toward the truth without going too far because I don't want to go too big. F**k that. I want to give you everything."

The Odyssey is in cinemas now.