Every actor in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ is using a flat American accent

Christopher Nolan finally won his Oscars for Oppenheimer, and he was immediately given $250 million to adapt The Odyssey. Nolan’s casting choices have come under a great deal of criticism, especially casting Matt Damon as Odysseus. Well, Nolan released the second trailer for The Odyssey and now people cannot shut up about how every actor, even the British actors, is employing an American accent in the film. Here’s trailer #2, the first time we hear many of these characters speak:

The Hollywood Reporter’s headline was “Everybody Using American Accents Is Definitely a Choice.” Their piece is all about how “everybody sounds like they’re from Ohio” and how everyone is using “contemporary-sounding language.” While it’s true that the “tradition” for these kinds of films is to use British accents, it’s not like any of these characters would have sounded British OR American. Nor would they have contemporary Greek accents or speak in contemporary Greek either. It’s clear that Nolan has made choices about language and accents though – I have an image of Nolan sitting on Robert Pattinson until Pattinson promised NOT to do some kind of crazy accent or voice. That was the only jarring part of the trailer for me, because I’m so primed to hear Pattinson doing something bonkers with his voice. To Sparkles, this probably counts though, trying to adopt the flat American accent (which he actually pulls off, honestly). Tom Holland’s American accent sounds fine too.

I actually sort of appreciate that Nolan made the call here and he didn’t allow the actors to do whatever they wanted accent-wise. It’s a mythical story about Sirens and Cyclopes and supernatural goddesses interacting with humans – there is no right or wrong way to do it, no hard-and-fast historical accuracy to adhere to. Nolan’s choice to ground the story in contemporary language and American accents is his choice and so be it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images. Screencaps & poster courtesy of Universal/trailers.