They were practising in the Grand Harbour at Valletta and looked really good – you would never have guessed that each ship had a small motor hidden away, just in case the crews needed a bit of extra help!

Yet another sub-team looked after the training of the Greek rowers in their carefully-reproduced ancient ships. There were also endless weapons – shields, swords and spears – and a whole sub-team of people whose expertise lay in how to use them to create convincing fights. I didn't see the fighting scenes, which were not all filmed in Malta, but it was gruesome enough to see the props store, where shelves held horribly realistic severed heads, impaled bodies and damaged limbs. Ship Allstar Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo. © Warner Brothers. Meanwhile, back in Troy – actually Shepperton Studios – Priam called a formal council, and the ever-adorable Hector (Eric Bana), reliably heroic but also sensible, tried hard to find alternatives to fighting this destructive war.Ī Greek ship in Troy (2004). The riches of Troy were in his eye, and clearly his real aim. They hugged in apparent solidarity, but the glance that Agamemnon (Brian Cox) gave over Menelaus’ shoulder was a gleam of pure cupidity. It was exciting beyond belief to stand in the banqueting hall in Sparta while Paris and Helen carried on their dangerous liaison under cover of a boozy party, then to see Menelaus in Mycenae, persuading Agamemnon to lead the combined Greek forces to get Helen back. Director Wolfgang Petersen generously invited me both to visit Shepperton Studios and to spend a week in Malta watching the film being made. But it happened to me during the making of Troy, starring Brad Pitt and released by Warner Brothers in 2004.

It's not often that museum curators get to hang out on Hollywood film sets.

Troy 2004 full movie