The Grinch actor's 'fantastic' performance praised for terrifying role in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan's latest movie, The Odyssey, is all that film junkies can talk about right now — but were you aware of an actor from a certain Christmas classic appearing in the Box Office hit?

How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which is making us feel very old with its 2000 release, is regarded as one of the best festive films ever made.

Following the grumpy, festive-hating Grinch, the story is the perfect example of how Christmas spirit can capture anyone.

While The Grinch was initially met with mixed reviews when it was released at the turn of the century, it has become a real Christmas favorite over time.

Bill Irwin played Cindy Lou’s dad Lou Lou in the movie and more recently helped Nolan bring The Odyssey to life.

The actor helped bring the terrifying cyclops to screen as he donned prosthetics and full body makeup.

The Odyssey director Christopher Nolan (Aalok Soni/Getty Images for Universal Pictures)

In the production notes for The Odyssey, Nolan explained that finding the right way to introduce the terrifying character into the film was one of the biggest challenges he faced with the project.

Nolan stated: "How can we take something that seems so fantastic and make you believe in it? The advantage I had going into The Odyssey was that I now have a lot of experience with different types of techniques of how to put things on film, whether you’re talking about the use of visual effects, practical effects, stunts, real locations, building sets, and many more.

"We needed to use all of it for The Odyssey, and in particular, for the Cyclops. Every trick in the book."

For the actual movie, the cyclops character was brought to life with a mixture of a physical performance from Irwin, as well as through visual effects.

Irwin's performance in The Odyssey has been praised by fans, with one person penning on X: "Bill Irwin was fantastic as the cyclops."

Bill Irwin brings a terrifying character to life in The Odyssey (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

The Grinch star and Nolan have previously collaborated together on Interstellar, the sci-fi adventure that released in 2014.

Speaking of Irwin's performance as the cyclops in The Odyssey, Nolan told reporter Jake Hamilton: "I learned from my friend Guillermo Del Toro that a monster is never just a monster – and that’s something he’s brought to his own work in a major way.

“It’s really about finding the individual behind that, and, in that way, presenting a more real and a more threatening [character]. The cyclops is a real individual, it’s a real character that Bill’s been able to create with everybody else involved in the film.”

The Odyssey is in cinemas now.