Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o has admitted that before being cast as Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the 2,800-year-old Greek classic The Odyssey, she had never even heard of the epic story, despite having graduated from Yale University.
“I really had no idea what The Odyssey was,” she told Elle Magazine. “I was like, ‘oh, snap, I don’t know the first thing about this.’ So it was a crash course. I picked up the books and read them immediately. I have this film to thank for my Greek mythological education.”
The admission is startling considering the fact that she is a graduate of one of America’s most elite universities. The actress — born to Kenyan parents in Mexico, then raised in Kenya — graduated from Hampshire College with a theater degree, then went to Yale in 2009 and obtained a master’s degree in acting in 2012. She also attended several high-status colleges in Kenya.
Yet, despite attending all these high-class universities and schools, she claims to never have run across one of the most famous epic tales in literature, a story that has been adapted into film, TV, and literature more than most other stories ever written.
Nyong’o was thrust into the eye of controversy after it was revealed that film director Christopher Nolan had cast her to play Helen of Troy, noted in the tale as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” and “the face that launched 1,000 ships.” The Helen character, of course, is Greek, and Nolan’s decision to cast Nyong’o riled lovers of The Odyssey.
The Kenyan actress, though, has dismissed the naysayers and insisted that she wants to look deeper into the character than mere beauty.
“You can’t perform beauty,” she explained. “I want to know who a character is. What is beyond beauty? What is beyond looks? That’s the thing about doing such a well-known text, which has been studied and interpreted and derived from.”
She added that The Odyssey is Greek mythology, not an historical retelling.
“I’m very supportive of Chris’s intention with it and with the version of this story that he is telling,” the 12 Years a Slave actress told Elle, noting that Nolan’s “cast is representative of the world.”
“I’m not spending my time thinking of a defense,” she exclaimed. “The criticism will exist whether I engage with it or not.”
“It’s quite something to be a part of The Odyssey, because it is so grand. It spans worlds. So that’s why the cast is what it is. We’re occupying the epic narrative of our time,” Nyong’o said of her being cast in the film.
As Breitbart News reported, unconfirmed rumors of transvestite actor Elliot Page — formerly Ellen — playing famed Greek warrior Achilles in Nolan’s film also sparked a backlash.
“You could have paid me to tank this movie and I wouldn’t have thought of this,” actor Kevin Sorbo said of the alleged casting.
Earlier this year, when Nyong’o’s role was still a rumor, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk blasted the news, writing, “Chris Nolan has lost his integrity” in response to an X user who noted Helen of Troy was a “fair skinned blonde” who men started a war over “because she was so beautiful.”
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