<\/p>\n
One of the most highly-anticipated movies of the year is now out, “The Odyssey.” Based on the ancient Greek epic poem, the movie stars a long roster of A-listers. But one of its stars is a young boy from the Capital Region. Thirteen-year-old Mason Cufari, from Rotterdam, plays young Sinon. <\/p>\n
At 13, Mason Cufari loves soccer, video games, and oh yeah…acting with Matt Damon in Italy on the set of “The Odyssey.”<\/p>\n
Mason said the workdays could be physically demanding, including long hikes to reach filming locations.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery single day that we had to film, we’d have to walk up this mountain and it took like, for me it took like 45 minutes, but for my mom it took her like two hours,\u201d Mason said.<\/p>\n
His mother, Dusty Cufari, said some of the biggest names in Hollywood were making the same climb. \u201cI mean Chris Nolan was walking up the mountain with us. You know, they were so…Tom Holland too was walking up the mountain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
For Mason, being around famous actors and filmmakers is just another day at “the office.” \u201cI just see them as normal people, not like big time celebrities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
“The Odyssey” is the first feature-length film shot entirely on 70-millimeter IMAX cameras. \u201cIt was pretty intense because you can only shoot in three-minute increments with the IMAX camera and I mean it’s pretty much you either do it right the first time or you’re wasting all of this like expensive film,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mason\u2019s acting career began early. His family said he started acting when he was three years old after Dusty heard about a casting call in Saratoga for a Dollar Tree ad. Mason didn\u2019t get that job, but it led to him getting an agent, and he continued building his resume. He later appeared in an episode of \u201cFallout\u201d with screenwriter and producer Jonathan Nolan, then auditioned in Los Angeles for Jonathan Nolan\u2019s brother, Christopher Nolan, for his next movie. Mason didn\u2019t think the audition went well, but the family soon got the call that he had been cast.<\/p>\n
Mason\u2019s father, Matt Cufari, described the moment he learned the news. \u201cWell I was with him when he got the call, when I was told by the wife to pull over and we got big news. And I was like oh my gosh, this is gonna be…and I cried for him, I did. I was like ‘Oh buddy this is it, this is it,’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mason and his mom traveled to Italy last April for a week of shooting. \u201cAnd one of the days it started raining like as we were going out there, and I was in like these sandals that are so old, and I would almost slip because we’re going down the rocky mountain and all the rocks are so slippery, and I have like mud all over my feet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also shared one of his favorite behind-the-scenes memories, involving actor John Leguizamo. \u201cIn the place that our costumes were, there was a bunch of tents and I was in there with Matt Damon and John Leguizamo and we would hear John sing while he was changing,\u201d Mason said.<\/p>\n
Mason’s future seems bright, but for now, he will continue to play soccer and enjoy this moment. \u201cI think people will enjoy it just based off of who’s in it and like what it’s about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source cbs6albany.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the most highly-anticipated movies of the year is now out, “The Odyssey.” Based on the ancient Greek epic poem, the movie stars a long roster of A-listers. But one of its stars is a young boy from the Capital Region. Thirteen-year-old Mason Cufari, from Rotterdam, plays young Sinon. At 13, Mason Cufari loves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2507998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2507997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Rotterdam-teen-actor-Mason-Cufari-makes-big-screen-debut-in-The.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2507997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2507999,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507997\/revisions\/2507999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2507998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2507997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2507997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2507997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}