Academy Award-winning director Christopher Nolan has defended his casting decisions for his upcoming epic The Odyssey following online backlash.
With the release of the newest trailer last week, online chatter attacked the film for some of the casting decisions, such as rapper Travis Scott. Speaking with TIME in a lengthy profile, the acclaimed filmmaker said he wanted Scott as a symbol for stories like Homer’s The Odyssey being passed down as oral poetry.
“I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap,” Nolan said.
In a TV teaser trailer clip, Scott is featured dressed as a storyteller while waxing poetic about the Trojan War.
“A war, a man, a trick — a trick to break the walls of Troy,” he says as various images flash across the screen. “It burning, screaming to the ground.”
Some of the attacks against Nolan were based on unfounded rumors or half-truths; for instance, unconfirmed chatter online that transgender actor Elliot Page was cast to play Achilles. It’s been confirmed that actress Lupita Nyong’o, who is black, will play Helen of Troy. One particular hit against the film was the assertion he adapted the script from Emily Wilson’s more modernized version of Homer’s epic, but TIME noted Nolan’s reverence for the E.V. Rieu and Robert Fagles translations.
“Comparing Emily Wilson, E.V. Rieu, and Robert Fagles translations of The Odyssey, I feel less like I’m interviewing a director than sitting in office hours with a particularly approachable professor,” noted Eliana Dockterman. “He has studied the period, and the film is aware of its historical moment: the Trojan War marks the end of the Bronze Age, and Greece is about to plunge into a dark age of fallen kingdoms and lost literacy.”
“He has also studied the text and made several striking adaptation choices,” she added.
Nolan also said he employed a team of experts to make The Odyssey authentic and accurate.
“For ‘Interstellar,’ you’re looking at: What is the best speculation of the future? When you’re looking at the ancient past, it’s actually the same thing,” Nolan said. “What is the best speculation, and how can I use that to create a world?”
“Hopefully they’ll enjoy the film, even if they don’t agree with everything. We had a lot of scientists complain about ‘Interstellar.’ But you just don’t want people to think that you took it on frivolously,” he added.
In the same profile, Matt Damon, who plays the titular character, said that Nolan’s script steered close to Homer while adding some interesting psychological introspections.
“He’s very faithful to Homer because that’s not somebody you rewrite. But thematically, what he looked at was really interesting,” said Damon.
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