The Cast of The Odyssey: All About the Stars Leading Christopher Nolan’s Adaptation of the Ancient Greek Classic

Matt Damon as Odysseus

Damon will lead The Odyssey as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. The actor has yet to say much about the role, other than telling The Hollywood Reporter in February 2025 that he literally had “an odyssey” in front of him. 

Universal announced the film’s release date with a photo featuring Damon in full battle regalia, wearing a plumed helmet and weathered cloak. The post read: “Matt Damon is Odysseus. A film by Christopher Nolan, #TheOdysseyMovie is in theaters July 17, 2026.”

Nolan and Damon first collaborated in the 2014 space film Interstellar. During a February 2024 appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the actor revealed that he promised his family to take a break from acting — unless Nolan called him.

And he did, which led to Damon playing Lt. General Leslie Groves in the 2023 movie Oppenheimer.

Tom Holland as Telemachus

Variety confirmed in July 2025 that Holland would play Telemachus, Odysseus’ son. He was also photographed on set of The Odyssey wearing a suit of armor in March 2025. 

The Spider-Man star was featured in the film’s teaser, which leaked on TikTok and X in July 2025. In the 70-second video, he discusses his need to find out what happened to his father.

It’s Holland’s first time working with Nolan, and the actor accepted his part in the film sight unseen. He told The Dish podcast in December 2024 that he had “no idea” what the movie was about and that the director only “loosely pitched” it to him. 

Jon Bernthal

The Bear’s Jon Bernthal has also been cast in the film, marking his first time working with Nolan. During an April 2025 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the actor said the director was “one of a kind.” 

“You jump at an opportunity to work with somebody like that,” Bernthal said. “Even if he does give you a haircut like the one I’m rocking right now with this full beard … I’m like fully being made fun of every day at my home.” 

Though his character hasn’t been confirmed, he was one of the few characters featured in the film’s leaked teaser. In it, he tells Holland’s character that he knows “nothing of Odysseus, not since Troy.”

“Some say he’s rich or some say he’s poor,” Bernthal’s character says to Telemachus. “Some say he perished. Some say he’s imprisoned. What say you?”

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron has also joined The Odyssey cast, marking her first time working with the acclaimed director.

The actress told Variety in June 2025 that she would be the “last one to show up” on set since the rest of the cast had been filming since earlier in the year.

“I don’t know, I’m just going to talk to Chris about it and we’ll see where it goes,” the actress said when asked about how she’s preparing for her undisclosed role, which is rumored to be Circe, a powerful sorceress. “It’s super intimidating … I’ll be like the new kid on the block. Everybody will know what they’re doing and not me.”

Robert Pattinson

Robert Pattinson has signed on for his second Nolan film, after appearing as Neil in the director’s action sci-fi flick Tenet in 2020. When production on that movie wrapped, the Twilight alum gifted Nolan a collection of Oppenheimer’s speeches, which planted the seed for the award-winning biopic, Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter.

Though Pattinson’s role is unclear, the voice narrating the leaked teaser for the film sounded like the actor, Variety reported. 

“Darkness. Zeus’ laws smashed to pieces,” the narrator reads. “A kingdom without a king since my master died. He knew it was an unwinnable war, and then somehow … somehow he won it.”

Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway has also been confirmed for The Odyssey cast, over a decade since she last appeared in one of Nolan’s films. 

The actress famously played Catwoman in the 2012 movie The Dark Knight Rises and portrayed an astronaut in Interstellar two years later. She told Women’s Wear Daily in December 2024 that appearing in her third Nolan movie makes her feel like she’s “doing something right.”

“I have so many feelings about it that I don’t even know how to articulate,” Hathaway said. “It fills me with so much joy … I love Chris and Emma Nolan so much, and to be invited into their world [is] one of the best places you can find yourself.” 

She continued, “Getting to be invited twice really felt like something, three felt like it would’ve been greedy, so I never let myself hope that that would happen, and that it has makes me emotional, to be perfectly honest.”

Zendaya

Zendaya will reunite with her fiancé, Holland, on-screen once again in The Odyssey. 

The couple have starred in multiple movies together, including the latest Spider-Man franchise. Zendaya told Vanity Fair in November 2024 that acting opposite her longtime love feels “strangely comfortable.”

“It’s like second nature, if anything,” Zendaya said. “You feel extra safe with the person you’re acting beside. I love working with him.”

It’s the Euphoria star’s first time working with Nolan.

Lupita Nyong’o

Lupita Nyong’o is also set to appear in The Odyssey, marking her first film with Nolan. The Hollywood Reporter first confirmed the actress’s participation in November 2024. 

She’s best known for her role in 12 Years a Slave, which won her an Academy Award, and has also starred in Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In 2024, she lent her voice to the animated film The Wild Robot.  

Elliot Page

Juno’s Elliot Page was cast in The Odyssey, though his role is not yet known. The actor (who came out as transgender in 2020) appeared in Nolan’s 2010 film Inception and wrote about feeling “out of place” in a “cast full of cis men” in his memoir Pageboy.

“Shingles popped out of my spine while filming ‘Inception’ when I was 22,” Page wrote in the 2023 book, per Variety. “Despite everyone being delightful to work with, I felt out of place. In a cast full of cis men, I did not understand the role I found myself in.”

Benny Safdie

Emmy-nominated actor, writer and filmmaker Benny Safdie will reunite with Nolan in the Greek epic. Outside of his starring role as physicist Edward Teller in Oppenheimer, fans may also recognize him from Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Licorice Pizza.

For Oppenheimer, Safdie told GQ in July 2023 that he sent Nolan a voice memo describing his breakfast in the thick Hungarian accent he used for the movie. The director told the outlet that he “listened to it about a thousand times.”

Himesh Patel

British actor Himesh Patel has also been cast in The Odyssey, which will be his second Nolan film. He previously starred in Tenet alongside Pattinson. 

“You gotta work hard, and you’ve got to be ready at any point,” the actor said of working on a Nolan set in an April 2025 interview for The Playlist. “I think it’s an environment where actors who don’t need to be sort of mollycoddled or at least they’re okay with not being mollycoddled once in a while, will kind of do okay.” 

He continued, “There’s times where it can feel a bit intense … but he has a way of creating an intimacy even in the biggest of environments.”

Mia Goth

Actress and model Mia Goth was confirmed to be in The Odyssey cast in February 2025. Though her role is unknown, sources told The Hollywood Reporter that she may not even speak at all in the movie. 

Goth is best known for her roles in MaXXXine and Pearl.

John Leguizamo

John Leguizamo is also set to appear in Nolan’s film, which will be his first time working with the director.

In a March 2025 interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Leguizamo said that even though Nolan has a “crazy budget,” the director has managed to make filming The Odyssey feel like an independent production.

“He runs [it] like an indie film because he’s not doing it by committee, he’s not doing it by what the studio says,” he said. “He’s like an indie filmmaker but with crazy money.”

The Emmy-winner has previously starred in Summer of Sam, Romeo + Juliet and John Wick.