Lupita Nyong'o Will Portray Two Sisters In 'The Odyssey’

Lupita Nyong’o will portray two sisters in The Odyssey. If you thought Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers in Sinners was one of the most impressive dual performances we were going to see this era, Christopher Nolan said, watch this. Read more inside. 

Nyong’o steps into not one but two roles in Nolan’s upcoming epic The Odyssey and the details of who she is playing make this casting one of the most fascinating decisions in a film already drowning in A-list talent.

Lupita’s Dual Roles

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed Lupita will play Helen of Troy — the most beautiful woman in the world, who is married to Menelaus and gets blamed for starting a war after she is spirited away by a prince. She also plays Helen’s sister Clytemnestra, who is married to Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon. Two sisters. Two marriages. Two completely different destinies inside one of the most storied stories ever told. The range this role demands is not casual and Nolan clearly knew exactly who could carry it. 

The casting was confirmed through a new Time profile on Nolan, which also pulled back the curtain on several other major creative decisions behind the film. Nolan explained why he ultimately decided not to cast actors to play the gods of Mount Olympus in his adaptation. He became more interested in the idea that, for people in that period, evidence of gods was everywhere, and that using nature and the characters’ beliefs to convey divine presence was far more powerful than any single image of a god. Nolan is working with a reported $250 million budget, so this creative choice reveals exactly who Christopher Nolan is as a filmmaker.

Generating Buzz & Comparisons

As People reported, the film is already generating massive buzz across every corner of the entertainment world. Lupita’s dual casting is the detail that has people most excited. 

The parallel to Michael B. Jordan’s work in Sinners is impossible to ignore. Jordan recently played twin brothers on opposite sides of a spiritual and moral war and delivered what many critics called the performance of his career.

Lupita is now walking into a similarly demanding assignment playing two women who represent entirely different responses to the same world of power, war and sacrifice. However, she is not new to this. In the 2019 horror film Us, Nyong’o plays two distinct characters—the protagonist, a mother named Adelaide Wilson, and her terrifying underground doppelgänger, Red.

Joined By More A-List Talent

The ensemble surrounding her is filled with A-list talent, including Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Zendaya as the goddess Athena, Charlize Theron as the nymph Calypso, Robert Pattinson as Antinous and Jon Bernthal as Menelaus. And even with all of that firepower in the same film, it is Lupita’s dual role that is dominating the conversation right now. 

Hathaway revealed that the entire A-list cast stayed in budget accommodations to keep production costs on screen rather than in luxury hotels, saying there was “no indulgent nonsense” on set and that everyone was simply there for the work. 

Summer Release

The Odyssey hits theaters on July 17th. Lupita has been one of the most gifted performers working in Hollywood for over a decade. This summer, she gets to prove it twice in the same movie.

Lupita Nyong'o Will Portray Two Sisters In 'The Odyssey’ was originally published on globalgrind.com