Mumbai got the full Hollywood treatment this week. Christopher Nolan brought The Odyssey to India for its premiere, and he didn’t come alone. Tom Holland and Matt Damon flew in with him, along with producer Emma Thomas, and somewhere between the five-star hotel and a 100-year-old cafe in Colaba, the promotional stop turned into its own story.
Tom Holland’s stay at the Taj, and it’s not a normal room
Holland checked into the Taj Mahal Palace, the hotel overlooking the Gateway of India that’s hosted everyone from Bill Clinton to Brad Pitt over the years. He’s reportedly in the Tata Suite, which is less a hotel room and more a private residence someone built inside a hotel.
The numbers on this suite are wild. It runs somewhere between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 12 lakh a night depending on the season, and it’s not hard to see why once you look at what’s actually in it. Two bedrooms, a full living room, a formal dining room, a private office, a lounge, a meeting room that seats 15, a butler’s pantry, a private spa with a sauna, and a personal gym. The whole thing spans roughly 465 square metres, built by knocking together 16 regular hotel rooms into one space.
It was designed as a tribute to Sir Jamsetji Tata, the hotel’s founder, and it shows. Antique furniture, original artwork, handcrafted details pulled from India’s design history everywhere you look. It’s become the default choice for royalty, presidents and A-listers passing through Mumbai, and this week it’s Holland’s for as long as the promotional tour keeps him in the city.
Nolan, Emma Thomas and Damon are staying at the Taj too for the Mumbai leg of the tour, though which suites they’ve landed in hasn’t been made public.
The chai run that upstaged the premiere
Here’s the part that actually went viral. On July 10, instead of another round of press events, Nolan, Holland and Damon slipped out to Olympia Coffee House in Colaba for chai and bun maska, the classic Mumbai combo of a buttered soft bun with hot, sweet, milky tea.
Universal Pictures India posted photos of the three of them crowded around one of the cafe’s marble-topped tables, and the internet did the rest. Inayat Maredia, who manages the place, told Hindustan Times that staff had no idea who they were about to serve. The group first showed up outside around 2:30pm, then actually walked in around 6, ordered chai and a few light snacks, and left about 10 to 15 minutes later once a crowd started forming outside. Police and bodyguards were already stationed by then.
There’s something almost funny about three of the biggest names in a $200 million blockbuster tour choosing a 1918 cafe over anywhere fancier. But Olympia has that effect on people. Founded by a businessman named Syed Mohammed Merab, who originally sold soap and biscuits alongside the food, the cafe changed hands in 1954 to four of his employees, and their descendants still run it today. It survived the 2008 Mumbai attacks too, staff lowered the shutters when gunfire broke out near the neighboring Leopold Cafe and kept customers inside until police cleared them out that night.
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Marble tables, wooden counters, the same pared-back interior it’s had for decades, that’s the whole appeal. It’s the kind of place where a taxi driver and a Hollywood director can order the same plate of keema.
The premiere itself
After the cafe stop, the group posed for a photocall with the Gateway of India as the backdrop, then headed into the premiere that evening. Dimple Kapadia, who worked with Nolan on Tenet, was there, along with Boman Irani. A screening for members of the Indian film industry had already taken place the day before, where Nolan reportedly shared an emotional message about his connection to the country.
Whatever comes of The Odyssey at the Indian box office, this trip has already given fans more to talk about than most premieres manage: a suite fit for a president, a century-old cafe that didn’t blink, and three of Hollywood’s biggest names acting, for about fifteen minutes, like regular tourists.
