Bringing Homer’s The Odyssey to the screen is a daunting task, and Christopher Nolan has recruited an extraordinary lineup of actors to make it happen. The ancient epic charts the twenty-year journey of a clever Greek hero who, after the fall of Troy, battles his way home to Ithaca and the family waiting for him—his devoted wife Penelope and their son Telemachus. Along the road he tangles with a wild assortment of gods, monarchs, outcasts, and sorceresses.
Nolan isn’t the first to attempt it. Mario Camerini’s 1954 Ulysses starred Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano, and the Coen brothers loosely reimagined the tale in 2000’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? with George Clooney and Holly Hunter. Now Nolan takes his turn, and the ensemble he’s gathered is worth examining.
Matt Damon as Odysseus. Damon anchors the film as the resourceful hero who outwits Poseidon, escapes the Sirens, and masterminds the Trojan Horse. This marks his third collaboration with Nolan following Interstellar and Oppenheimer, and the actor has called it the toughest role of his career.
Anne Hathaway as Penelope. Hathaway plays the fiercely faithful queen who fends off a horde of suitors for two decades while safeguarding the kingdom, famously stalling them by unweaving her burial shroud each night. It’s her third Nolan project after The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar.
Tom Holland as Telemachus. Holland steps away from Spider-Man to portray Odysseus’s son, whose search for his father dominates the poem’s opening books.
Robert Pattinson as Antinous. Pattinson embraces a rare villain turn as the scheming leader of Penelope’s suitors—a character readers love to hate, not least for his attempt on Telemachus’s life.
Lupita Nyong’o as Helen and Clytemnestra. Nyong’o takes on dual sister roles: Helen, whose story sparks the Trojan War, and Clytemnestra, whose marriage to Agamemnon ends in tragedy.
Zendaya as Athena. Holland’s real-life wife plays the goddess of wisdom who repeatedly steers both Odysseus and Telemachus back on course.
Benny Safdie as Agamemnon. In a surprising choice, the Uncut Gems filmmaker plays the ruthless Achaean commander who returns from war only to meet a grim fate at home.
Jon Bernthal as Menelaus. Bernthal takes on the Spartan king who assures Telemachus that his father still lives.
Charlize Theron as Calypso. Making her Nolan debut, Theron plays the sea nymph who holds a shipwrecked Odysseus captive on her island for seven years, offering immortality he refuses.
John Leguizamo as Eumaeus. Leguizamo plays the loyal swineherd who shows kindness to the disguised Odysseus.
Himesh Patel as Eurylochus. Patel, previously in Tenet, plays Odysseus’s conflicted second-in-command whose choices repeatedly endanger the crew.
Mia Goth as Melantho. Goth plays a spiteful palace maid who torments the disguised king, alongside her twin brother Menthius (Logan Marshall-Green).
Travis Scott as the bard. Scott appears as the narrator, a nod to the oral tradition that kept the epic alive for three thousand years.
Bill Irwin as Polyphemus. Reuniting with Nolan after voicing TARS in Interstellar, Irwin becomes the Cyclops whose blinding sets Poseidon’s wrath in motion.
