Not to contradict the perpetually-inconvenienced Odysseus, but sometimes you can, in fact, go home. Of course, “home” in this context refers to the best and most talented actors around finally getting a chance to work with director Christopher Nolan. Embarking on an epic like “The Odyssey” inevitably meant finding an ensemble talented enough to match the acclaimed filmmaker’s vision. The results are an intriguing mix of familiar faces (Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Elliot Page, and Benny Safdie, for starters) and fresh faces, too.
Among the newcomers making their Nolan debuts in “The Odyssey” are Lupita Nyong’o and Jon Bernthal, who portray the couple Helen of Troy and King Menelaus of Sparta, respectively. (Nyong’o also appears as Helen’s twin sister Clytemnestra.) Ahead of the release of Nolan’s latest, I was able to attend the New York junket and talk to the two scene-stealing stars about their experience working with such a “master” filmmaker, as Bernthal put it. “There’s such comfort in going to work with someone like him, that you’re seeing somebody doing the very thing that they were put on this earth to do […] It’s such a comforting feeling to be in the hands of a master,” he explained.
Bernthal should know, after all, having worked with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Denis Villeneuve, Steve McQueen, and Edgar Wright. According to the actor, Nolan does one thing that all the greats do as well:
“In my experience, the true best of the best with filmmakers, they approach things so differently. But the one thing that’s uniform is this unbelievably — I mean, beyond thorough — just this intimacy with the story, this knowledge of it, knowing exactly what they want and to be able to explain it and convey it in this unbelievably cogent and clear way.”
Christopher Nolan had one important ‘demand’ of his actors in The Odyssey
The rumors are true: A filmmaker as diligent and detail-oriented as Christopher Nolan has sky-high expectations for all the people he works with, cast and crew included. The stakes only increased all the more with a production on the level of “The Odyssey,” with Universal Pictures essentially handing over a blank check so that Nolan’s team could run wild and film on location across Italy and Greece. There’s no room for anyone to bring anything less than their best, which was a pressure that both Jon Bernthal and Lupita Nyong’o felt acutely.
During our conversation, Bernthal dove deeper into the one “demand” that Nolan had of his cast — yet another quality that he shares in common with other great storytellers:
“But there’s also this thing where, it’s not [simply] acceptable for you to fill [the role] yourself and for you to bring yourself to it, but [the best directors] demand you to do it. So, it’s this thing of: They know it so well, they’ll tell you exactly what it is they want, but you have got to bring yourself.”
That concept might sound a little nebulous, but allow me to run this through my own translator. This is basically actor-speak for turning a performance into a true collaboration between proactive artists. Bernthal went on to say:
“It is our job with this very little bit […] to fill it, make it matter so much because we see how much it matters to him. And I love that. I find in my experience, the best of the best of the best that I’ve had the unbelievable privilege and honor to work with, they all have that same thing, and there’s no question it’s there with Chris.”
Lupita Nyong’o explains how the cast took ownership of their roles in The Odyssey
Naturally, that collaborative experience also extended to Lupita Nyongo’s dual roles as both Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. It’s no spoiler to say that neither she nor Jon Bernthal get the lion’s share of scenes throughout “The Odyssey” and its nearly three-hour runtime, but they make the absolute most of every second they’re on screen. To hear Nyong’o tell it, that’s partly because of the vivid ideas present within Christopher Nolan’s screenplay and partly a result of the director allowing his cast to “take ownership” of their roles. As she explained to me, “Chris is interested in the lived experience of the characters that he’s written. The script gives lots of very, very spare, but very, very important clues about the character that you are building.”
That certainly applies to a character like Helen of Troy, who’s given a surprisingly emotional storyline that lingers far beyond her relative lack of actual screen time. Where it gets tricky, potentially, is in the many different interpretations and versions of this particular story. To that end, Nyong’o gives credit to the constant push and pull between director and performer. According to her:
“So, with this story, there’s so many iterations of ‘The Odyssey’ […] But then what Chris wrote was a very specific version, a choice version of the story he wanted to tell. And then it’s our job to take those clues and, like Jon said, fill it with what feels like palpable life. And that’s lots of fun because we got to do it together. We got to do it as a trio as well. And yeah, we get to take ownership of what we put on screen.”
“The Odyssey” roars into theaters July 17, 2026.
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