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Christopher Nolan has explained his decision to have 'The Odyssey' cast speak in American accents
Christopher Nolan is a master of his craft. That does not mean, however, that he’s above questioning — which is exactly what he was on the receiving end of when the trailers for The Odyssey revealed that its cast would be speaking English with American accents.
Given that The Odyssey is a historical epic and many of the cast members are British, while audiences perhaps didn’t expect the dialogue to be in Ancient Greek or Shakespearean English, the American accents caught some off guard.
Christopher Nolan says he had the cast of The Odyssey speak in modern English so audiences would have an easier time connecting with the film emotionally
Christopher Nolan’s explanation of that decision, however, makes perfect sense and further underlines why he’s such an expert storyteller and filmmaker. He wasn’t without self-deprecation, though, as he admitted that the choice could “bite him in the ass.”
“Intent on finding ‘language that has emotional not intellectual meaning to people,’ Nolan opted to use colloquial, contemporary dialogue when constructing his script rather than artificially elevated speech. ‘I was maybe being naïve, it might bite me on the ass, but I wanted an earthy narrative. To me it was a no-brainer.'” [via Los Angeles Times]
Nolan’s logic is essentially built on the idea that the most important way the audience can connect with a film is emotionally. Thus, if they’re spending their time trying to understand it logically — in this case, via a different language or accent, or, as he learned in the case of Tenet, where audiences struggled to understand the plot itself due to both sound mixing issues and conceptual complexity — making that emotional connection is more difficult and the experience he’s aiming to provide becomes harder to achieve.
Ahead of the film’s release in theaters on July 17, the first reactions to The Odyssey hit social media earlier this week, with film journalists largely agreeing that the movie is an epic cinematic achievement.
The Odyssey stars Matt Damon in the lead role of Odysseus alongside Robert Pattinson as Antinous, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Zendaya as Athena, Lupita Nyong’o as both Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, Charlize Theron as Calypso, Samantha Morton as Circe, Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, Benny Safdie as Agamemnon, and more.