Christopher Nolan may be at the peak of his career, yet he continues to feel nervous whenever one of his films is set to debut.

During a recent appearance on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, the director of "Oppenheimer" explained that putting out a movie remains intimidating since he invests so much of himself in every production.

"One of the responsibilities, but one of the great thrills of my job, is that you get to live in a world for a couple of years, and I devote myself to that fully. For me, that's never finished, really, until the film goes out to the audience," Nolan told Stewart. "The audience finishes the movie. They tell us what it is that we did."

With the July 17 release of his upcoming project "The Odyssey" approaching, Nolan noted, "Right now, we're a few days away. And it's a terrifying time."

The movie stars Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Holland. It draws from Homer's ancient Greek epic about Odysseus and his decade-long journey home to Ithaca following the Trojan War.

Nolan mentioned that he showed early cuts to test audiences during production.

"You have an idea of how the movie's playing for an audience," he said.

Even so, the uncertainty tied to a global release never fades, he added.

"It never gets any easier, and it's absolutely terrifying," Nolan said.

Anticipation for "The Odyssey" runs especially high. The film marks the first feature shot completely with IMAX cameras, driving strong interest in premium IMAX and 70mm formats. Some viewers plan trips abroad to see it, while others are spending up to $600 on tickets for early screenings.

Nolan has discussed these pre-release nerves before. In a 2017 interview with the Los Angeles Times ahead of "Dunkirk," he called the period before audiences viewed the film "this awful, tense moment."

"It's this kind of horrible holding pattern of stress," he said.

Nolan is not the only director who feels this pressure. Other noted filmmakers have shared similar experiences.

In 2012, Steven Spielberg told CBS News he still gets "stage fright every single morning" when arriving on set.

"If I didn't have that, I wouldn't be a director. You can't make a great movie from a position of great confidence. The more nervous I am, I think the better the films turn out," Spielberg said.

In 2022, before "Avatar: The Way of Water" arrived, James Cameron told AP News that no director escapes pre-release anxiety. Anyone who "says they don't get nervous before a movie drops" is not being truthful, Cameron stated at the time.