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Christopher Nolan was unbothered by the 'irrelevant' backlash to 'The Odyssey'
Oscar winning Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan has heard the backlash — particularly the race and gender driven discourse over his casting decisions — to The Odyssey. And he does not care. At least until the movie is actually out, that is.
A week ahead of The Odyssey‘s release in theaters on July 17, Christopher Nolan is making the rounds in the media and was naturally asked about the backlash to the film, which recently manifested in the final trailer receiving over 600,000 “dislikes” on YouTube (at the time of this writing).
Christopher Nolan calls criticism of The Odyssey from people who have not yet seen the film “irrelevant”
Elon Musk and other popular conservative figures on social media have taken particular issue with Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o being cast as Helen of Troy — “the most beautiful woman in the world” — and Elliot Page playing Sinon, a Greek soldier and Odysseus’s cousin who fought alongside him in the Trojan War.
Additional yet less divisive discourse has also centered on Nolan’s decision to have the cast speak in modern American English.
During an interview with The Telegraph, Nolan — while literally sipping tea, not even in the sarcastic-Kermit-the-Frog-meme-sense — said the backlash to the film is “irrelevant” until the film has been seen.
“Was Nolan taken aback? ‘Comes with the territory,’ he says, grinning serenely, before lifting his cup and saucer and taking a theatrical sip. ‘But look,’ he adds, ‘these conversations that happen before people see the film – they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.'”
“Besides, he says, he was aware from day one that The Odyssey was exactly the sort of project liable to stir up strong commentary – in good faith and bad – about how it should properly be handled.”
There’s literally 3am screenings that are sold out but sure the dislikes ratio is crazy https://t.co/CKCieadaRz
— thomas 🎥🍿 (@tommylovesfilm) July 2, 2026
Nolan also pointed out that he has notable experience in taking on a character/story that audiences have a firm preconceived notion of when he directed a trilogy of Batman movies — one of which, The Dark Knight, is widely hailed as one of the great cinematic achievements of the 21st century.
“But remember. I spent 10 years of my life dealing with Batman. When I came on to Batman Begins, writers and artists had been working on this beloved character for almost 65 years, and a lot of freighted thoughts were out there about what he represents,” the Oscar winning filmmaker explained.
“And what I learnt over my time on that trilogy is you can’t worry about any of that at all. What you have to do is honor the original text by interpreting it in the strongest way you personally can.”
The Odyssey, hitting theaters on Friday, July 17, 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.
Early reactions to the film have hailed Nolan’s epic as an all-time cinematic achievement that lives up to its hype and then some.