The Odyssey Casting

May 25, 2026

Christopher Nolan is producing a big budget version of the classic Homer epic, The Odyssey. I would like to say I was excited about this movie when I first heard about it, but I knew it was not going to deliver. I knew it because we are in 2026, and Hollywood is unable to cast a movie about European culture without injecting it with a healthy dose of wokeness. I am not going to belabor the point here because I already discussed it at length in another article, Wokeism: definition, examples, and societal impact. I want to give some of my thoughts though around why this casting choice was made, and why you would not see this, and do not see this, if the movie is set in any other cultural setting that is not “White”.

First, let us get the casting out of the way. No Greek actors are cast in this movie, and if there are any, they are probably just some minor background characters. Matt Damon is Odysseus, Anne Hathaway is Penelope, Tom Holland is Telemachus. We even have John Leguizamo and Himesh Patel cast as Greek Warriors… I will link to the IMDB. All of those castings are not good, but there are several castings that have really set social media ablaze in the usual left-vs-right culture war. I call it left-vs-right, but I do not think it cleanly breaks down that way. These castings are causing a stir because of how bad they are, and the ideological reasons why they were made. Lupita Nyong’o is Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, Zendaya is Athena, and Ellen “Elliot” Page is playing someone, most definitely a male Greek warrior of some type.

As much as the online, woke warriors want to defend this and call everyone opposed to it racist and transphobic, we all know why this was done. We know that the story comes from a European culture, which is considered White. It is a foundational story that many Western cultures draw from, regard as a classic of their history, and teach it in their core education. Because it is White, it is by default, not diverse, and therefore needs diversity injected into it. Greeks are lumped in with the rest of White people and so the opinions of the people of Greece, whose culture this is; whose country this movie was filmed in; whose tax money helped fund this movie, are not important enough to be considered.

Of course we get a black woman as Helen of Troy. Of course we get a mixed-race, black woman as Athena, the Goddess Wisdom. Of course we get a black rapper as a bard and Ellen Page as a Greek warrior, possibly Achilles. What I find interesting is it has come out that getting culture to feel authentic is really important to Lupita, when it came to Black Panther and African culture. She even turned down Woman King because she felt it was not going to represent African culture well enough. When it comes to African culture, it is important to get it authentic, but when it comes to Greek culture, White culture, nah. What is important is she gets to be a part of it. And if you have a problem with it, you are a racist.

Here are examples that I gave in the Wokeism article I wrote. But I will include the examples of the race swapping that happened in Wheel of Time, because that is another example of doing this when it is a story that features primarily White characters. And even though that story has many non-white people and cultures, that did not matter. They did it anyway.

Below, casting or promotional depictions (left) are shown beside conventional classical or historic sources (right) for several of those figures.

Below are some examples of race swapping from the Wheel of Time television series compared to how Robert Jordan envisioned the characters:

In the article I did about wokeness and the Wheel of Time, I brought up the casting for another movie, set in an African setting, but fantasy, Children of Blood and Bone. I notice that the casting for that, not racially diverse. All the actors, writers, directors, black. Now, this would make sense. I actually applaud this because it should be that way for the casting. I would not like it to be anything other than how the book was. But if every movie, story, TV show, set in a White, European cultural setting needs to be diversified, why should we not expect that when the cultural setting is non-White? I know why, but people do not want to say it. This is about tearing down White culture.

Main Character Zelie will be played by Thuso Mbedu.

Zelie's brother, Tzain, will be played by Tosin Cole.

Princess Amari will be played by Amandla Stenberg.

Prince Inan will be played by Damson Idris.

And finally, Mama Agba will be played by Viola Davis.

The link to wokeness goes like this: There has been a historic imbalance in the main roles for movies for black and transgender actors. This is caused by systemic discrimination in the past and present. There has also been an imbalance in Western societies in the cultures of origin for stories taught and adapted into movies. This is because of systemic discrimination and White supremacy. Therefore, if we are going to adapt a story from a “White” culture, we need to put black and transgender people into it to help correct the imbalance and fight systemic discrimination.

However, if we adapt a story from a cultural origin where the people of said culture are of the historically marginalized group, then we need to ensure that we are as authentic as possible, even if that means the movie is less diverse. By doing this, more people from that historically marginalized group get jobs, their story is told authentically, and we are taking another step forward in correcting for the systemic discrimination both historic and present day that the group faced and continues to face.

In the end, The Odyssey movie is made. There is no going back, and I think that this movie is going to lose money. The decision to cast the way they did was made for woke ideological reasons, and Christopher Nolan and the studio is going to have to deal with it. I personally think Lupita is a very beautiful woman, but not the right person to play the Greek Helen of Troy.