Christopher Nolan has taken viewers from the streets of Gotham City to the shores of Dunkirk, and from the deepest recesses of the dreaming mind to the edges of a black hole itself. Yet the announcement of his latest project has raised more than a few eyebrows. Homer’s Ancient Greek epic The Odyssey seems like a strange choice for a filmmaker who has devoted his work to puzzle box stories about troubled great men.
As different as The Odyssey might be for Nolan, we do already know we can count on one thing. He’ll have a great cast joining him on this journey. Even when we thought that Nolan’s next project would be Blue Thunder, we knew that he would be working again with Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Robert Pattinson, as well as adding Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Lupita Nyong’o to his repertoire of players. Now that we know he’s adapting The Odyssey, Homer’s story of Odysseus’ 10-year journey back to Ithaca after the Trojan War, we can begin to speculate about which character these actors will play. So without further ado, here are our best guesses of who is playing which role…
Matt Damon as Odysseus
The King of Ithaca, Odysseus spent 10 years fighting the Trojans alongside other Greek heroes from the mythical Bronze Age. Think Achilles and the troubled Ajax. Although the Greeks won the Trojan War (remember the Brad Pitt movie on this score?), Odysseus nonetheless angered the sea god Poseidon in the aftermath. This is problem if you plan to travel home by sea. As a result, Homer tells us it took Ithaca’s monarch another 10 years to return home, the span of which makes up this story.
More than his leadership and strength, Odysseus’ craftiness makes him a hero. He outsmarts his opponents time and again, whether by fooling an enormous cyclops by calling himself “Nobody,” or having his crew plug their ears with beeswax to block out the Sirens’ song (Odysseus being who he is, asked to be tied to the mast so he could hear their beckoning call).
Damon made a name for himself by playing against his boyish looks as a genius janitor in Good Will Hunting and as an identity stealing hanger-on in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Nolan gave Damon a new wrinkle to play in Oppenheimer, whose Colonel Leslie Groves boiled with rage under his all-American exterior. This combination of playfulness and likable demeanor makes Damon a strong choice for Odysseus.
Anne Hathaway as Penelope
Nolan is famously a wife guy. He makes himself unavailable during family time between projects, and his wife Emma works closely with him as a producer. Nolan is also famous for struggling to write female characters, especially wives and daughters. Marion Cotillard’s Mal from Inception is the paradigmatic example, a mad woman who must remain locked away, even as Cobb strives to come back to their children.
Penelope, however, is much more than just Odysseus’ worrying wife. She must hold Ithaca together in the King’s absence, a project made more difficult by a phalanx of suitors trying to convince her that the king has died and she must remarry.
By this point, Hathaway has outlasted the charges that she’s a try-hard theater kid and most recognize her as an observant performer who can play against her natural charm, a change of public perception won in part by stealing every scene as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. That quality makes her a good counterpart to Damon’s Odysseus, outwitting the suitors while holding Ithaca together. We also know that Nolan has had both Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne and Matthew McConaughey’s Interstellar astronaut cross oceans (or more) to reach her.
Tom Holland as Telemachus
Penelope’s problems at home get worse when her son Telemachus decides to follow in his father’s footsteps and head to sea to find him. There’s a tragic quality to Telemachus’ decision, suggesting that the son is damned to make the same mistakes as the father.
Like Damon, Holland can do much more than his boyish looks suggest. Unlike Damon, however, Holland’s been limited by huge MCU roles and by making disastrous choices with almost every other project he joins. Holland acquits himself well in The Devil All the Time or Cherry, but those half-baked films fall far short of the actor’s ambitions. Hopefully, working with Nolan will give Holland the chance to move beyond Peter Parker. Telemachus wants to prove himself just like Holland does, which will allow the actor to find some emotional truth for the part.
Charlize Theron as Calypso
Odysseus spends seven of his 10 years away trapped on the island Ogygia where he’s a captive of the nymph Calypso. Calypso wants Odysseus as her husband, offering him immortality as a reward.
Charlize Theron has played her share of determined and complicated characters, whether it be a human train wreck in Young Adult, an immortal vigilante in The Old Guard, or the Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. In each of these cases, her hard stare and cutting remarks belie a deep vulnerability. Homer presents Calypso as a tragic figure, someone almost bound by her desire for Odysseus. She knows that he will never love her as much as he does Penelope, but she accepts that, as long as she can have him as a husband.
Lupita Nyong’o as Circe
Where Calypso fails Circe succeeds. After transforming his men into swine, the witch Circe manages to keep Odysseus with her for a year. Even though he claims to be steadfast in his love for Penelope, Odysseus cannot resist Circe’s beauty or the abundance of her home. Tired of fighting, he gives in to her.
Lupita Nyong’o is easily one of the most versatile actors working today, as seen in her triumphant dual performance in Jordan Peele‘s Us, strong voice acting turns in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Wild Robot, and her Academy Award-winning work in 12 Years a Slave. Nyong’o knows how to transform herself for the occasion, sometimes using her beauty and intelligence to project an ethereal quality and sometimes bringing raw physicality to her characters. This range makes her the perfect choice to portray a sorceress who beguiles the hero.
Zendaya as Athena
Okay, yes, Zendaya is a bit young to play such a powerful goddess. But, come one, Athena’s a Goddess—exactly how old should she look?
More importantly, Zendaya’s proven herself adept at playing wise beyond her years and slight frame. Just look at Dune: Part Two and Challengers from earlier in this year where she brought rage and ambition to characters seen as just a pretty face by the men around them. Zeus’ daughter, Athena is Odysseus’ patron on Mount Olympus. She helps throughout his battles and sends other gods, such as Hermes, to intercede on his behalf. Furthermore, she also has an eye for Telemachus, giving a treat for celebrity gossip fans when they see Zendaya and Tom Holland share the screen again.
Robert Pattinson as Poseidon
As with Zendaya, Pattinson’s a bit younger than those we usually associate with the gods. But also like Zendaya, Pattinson’s worked against his handsome features to play complicated figures. And no one in The Odyssey is more complicated than Poseidon, Odysseus’ chief antagonist. Furious with Odysseus for blinding his son, the cyclops Polyphemus, Poseidon doesn’t kill his rival and instead just messes with him.
Even by the standards of the idiosyncratic gods, that’s a weird choice, and Pattinson loves to be weird. Plus, if he gets to exercise some of the watery muscles he developed while making The Lighthouse, all the better.
What About Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Other Nolan Regulars?
So far, that’s all we have for confirmed cast members. The Odyssey isn’t slated for release until 2026, which means that there’s still a lot of work to do.
But we know how much Nolan likes working with people he knows, so we’re almost guaranteed to see him bring back some old favorites. It would be fun to see Tom Hardy cover the top part of his face instead of the bottom to play a muttering version of Polyphemus the Cyclops. It’s not hard to see a venerable performer like Tom Conti or Ken Watanabe play Zeus or one of the other gods. Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be great as Eurymachus, the most charismatic and duplicitous of Penelope’s suitors.
Or, we could be wrong about all of this. After all, this is just speculation, and Nolan has surprised us before. We’ll be watching closely as The Odyssey finds its way to theaters.
The Odyssey is slated for a 2026 release.
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