Greetings, reader!
I had the great pleasure of seeing Christopher Nolan's newest film The Odyssey recently. It's one of the year's defining movie events, and to me personally, it was most definitely worth the hype. The typical Veikko move would be to post an updated ranking of Nolan's films and review the movie via that, but the thing is - I've already done that twice for the guy's filmography, with both Tenet (2020) and Oppenheimer (2023). Suffice to say that it's one of the best movies of the year so far, and I'm tentatively putting it somewhere between places #4 and #7 in my ranking of Nolans' thirteen films.
I decided that the most interesting post to write would be this: a ranking of the major performances in the film's widely discussed, star-studded ensemble cast! So here is my ranking of every memorable role performance in the film, based on one viewing.
20. Logan Marshall-Green as Melanthius
This secondary antagonist could very much be argued to not belong on the list, but I included him mainly so all of the more impressive performances could be ahead of him and I wouldn't feel too bad about putting any of them at the last place. Don't get me wrong, this performance isn't bad, but it's quite mundane because the character didn't require anything more complex. Marshall-Green does a fine job, but it's definitely a far cry from the more unforgettable roles and fleshed-out characters.
19. Travis Scott as Bard
I do actually get the casting choice, in all bizarre glory - Nolan sees rappers as the modern continuation of the bardic tradition, so he wanted cast a genuine modern-day bard in this role. As weird of a "What the hell is a polar bear doing in Arlington, Texas" moment as it was to see Travis Scott in a historical epic, he actually carries the role flawlessly. Then again, it's such a small role (though an important one, atmosphere-wise), that there isn't very much he gets to do other than recite words in a cool manner a few times.
18. Benny Safdie as Agamemnon
I've seen a lot of people online singing their praises and calling this one of the film's best performances - and they've got to be at least half-joking, right? Don't get me wrong, there isn't anything bad about this performance, but as was the case with the previous entries, it's such a minor role (and not one of those minor roles that the actor does absolute miracles with, as we'll see a few of those later down the list). Yes, I get it, he has aura, and Safdie was the right casting choice for sure - but the character basically stands around, looking cool in armor, and says between zero and two lines of dialogue from what I can recall. A fine casting choice, but people are going a bit overboard with the Agamemnon hype if you ask me.
17. Ryan Hurst as Mentor
Mentor the mentor had quite a good chunk of screentime when compared to many of these, but is still ranked relatively low because the character wasn’t written to require all that much talent or range. Ryan Hurst was the right casting choice, as he definitely had the right look for the part and he used his lines and subtle acting style to further the plot and serve the bigger picture.
16. James Remar as Tiresias
The sequence with the blind prophet Tiresias giving Odysseus a warning was all sorts of cool, and James Remar’s short but poignant performance definitely elevated the impact of the scene. Between voicing the Pig’s Head villain in horror flick They Will Kill You and doing a decent Tiresias, 2026 has been a great year for James Remar playing creepy mythological roles.
15. Bill Irwin as Cyclops
Bill Irwin’s role is naturally difficult to compare to the rest of these, as motion capture acting is its own arena and one can easily forget that there is a guy playing Polyphemus the cyclops. But Bill Irwin, who also collaborated with Nolan by voicing the lovable robot T.A.R.S. in Interstellar (man, Nolan really has something against showing this guy’s face to the world), does a fantastic job with the mo-cap performance and the character’s haunting, emotionally charged voice when he appeals to Poseidon.
14. Mia Goth as Melantho
The role isn’t a very big one, but Mia Goth’s effortlessly powerful on-screen presence makes Melantho a whole lot more interesting than the character would be if a lesser actress was portraying her. Various microexpressions and nuances in her interactions with characters like Penelope and Antinous make the character mysterious and worthy of analysis.
13. Corey Hawkins as Polybus
There are so many different types of good acting to be found from this film’s ensemble, and Corey Hawkins as Polybus is a brilliant example of the underrated and surprisingly many-sided supporting character one might initially overlook. Polybus isn’t all that important to the story, other than as Antinous’ second-fiddle antagonist, but what separates films like The Odyssey from less impressive films is that they cast genuinely talented actors (and let them do their thing) even for these kinds of roles! While Polybus is a side character with relatively little screentime, he is anything but one-note; Hawkins brings small but noticable amounts of humor, envy and humanity into the role in order to make the villain much more interesting to follow.
12. Lupita Nyong'o as Helen / Clytemnestra
Yeah, it’s not a whole lot of screen time, but then again, it’s Lupita Nyong’o. One of the most talented actresses of her generation, Nyong’o makes her version of Helen of Troy effortlessly interesting. On some occasions, casting an elite-level actor in a small role is a questionable choice, but on others (like this one), I found it completely justified.
Helen didn’t need to have a big role because she has more to do with the Iliad and is a very minor player in the Odyssey, but at the same time, it kind of had to be a larger-than-life actress as long as she was going to be included in the film - the character is just that iconic. Not only did Lupita look the part and serve the right amount of aura, she also brought her full talent on display despite the short screentime - the entire pain of the character’s lore can be read across her bleak, reflective facial expressions. Powerful stuff.
11. Charlize Theron as Calypso
It took me a while to warm up to this performance - I know she’s a talented actress, but her first few scenes in this film gave a bit of a ”miscast big-name actor” vibe. Alas, this first impression was thankfully a total misfire!
As the film progressed and we got a more in-depth look at this version of Calypso, she gained all sorts of extra layers and Theron’s acting choices started to make more and more sense. When all is said and done, the casting choice ended up being a home run, and Theron did all sorts of interesting things with the character.
10. Himesh Patel as Eurylochus
This is a true team-player acting performance if I ever saw one: in a cast undoubtedly full of big egos portraying a story that requires a lot of dramatic flair from many of its performers, Himesh Patel as Eurylochus brings some much-needed balance to the whole. He never makes a big fuss about himself or comes close to stealing too much attention, but plays one of the more grounded major characters with a humane subtlety that immediately makes the story more relatable and accessible for the viewer. His rising tensions and eventual arguments with Matt Damon’s Odysseus are absolute dynamite without being over-the-top.
9. Elliot Page as Sinon
I liken the role of Elliot Page in this production to the role of Ferran Torres in Spain’s 2026 World Cup -winning team; he’s not a constant, he’s only there for a fairly small amount of time, but when arriving in the right place at the right time, he makes all the difference in the world. Page’s scenes as Sinon are relatively few, but my God, he does so much with them, painting a beautiful picture of fear, bravery and sacrifice.
8. Jon Bernthal as Menelaus
He’s done it again! Jon Bernthal is one of those actors who simply doesn’t miss, and his latest role is no exception. What he does with his voice alone, in the sequence where we see flashbacks to the Trojan war while he explains his experience to Telemachus - the grating style of speaking and grim tone express pain, bitterness and all sorts of emotions while coloring the atmosphere of the scene in a phenomenal manner.
7. Robert Pattinson as Antinous
This is the shit! For the role of Antinous, the chief suitor of Penelope and main antagonist of the story, a more inside-the-box casting director would’ve gone with a more archetypical ’slimy guy’ - which would’ve been fine. But casting Robert Pattinson, who can famously play absolutely anything and anyone except anything mundane, as he so effortlessly makes every role fascinating, was a stroke of genius. Pattinson’s acting choices made the villain so much more engaging to follow - the bursts of anger, the humorous nuances and the sheer weirdness made the character feel genuinely unpredictable, and all the more dangerous for it.
6. Zendaya as Athena
Jesus Christ, the range on this woman…it’s truly staggering. After mastering roles from the musical sidekick and the quirky love interest, through the heartbreaking drug addict and the iconic literary hero, all the way to the powerhouse leading lady and whatever the hell The Drama was, it only makes sense that the next move in Zendaya’s wild-ass career trajectory was to play a literal Goddess.
Nolan’s script utilizes Athena in a very specific and intriguing manner, and there simply isn’t anyone currently working in Hollywood who was better suited for a wise, mysterious and mythical presence than Zendaya. Her scenes with Matt Damon are absolutely unreal, her facial expressions say so much with so little, and the range she showcases in that film-defining reveal near the end is incredibly powerful.
5. John Leguizamo as Eumaeus
While there is one supporting male performance that I personally ranked ahead of this one, it’s John Leguizamo who I’m guessing will be getting a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination - and if so, it’ll be very deserved. Who knows - dude might even win it. In a role completely different from anything else I’ve seen Leguizamo in before, he takes the archetype of the wise old man who stayed loyal to the hero throughout a time of turbulent change and just f**king goes places with it.
Leguizamo’s performance isn’t as bombastic as many in the film, and therein lies its beauty - he brings humane tenderness to the film’s milieu, to the point where he’s arguably the beating heart of the story.
4. Tom Holland as Telemachus
The reception to this performance has been somewhat mixed, and I sort of get it - some critics say Holland ’looks lost’ in the film’s milieu when compared to his more seasoned co-stars. However, I see this more as a purposeful and well-reasoned acting choice, and I think it made his Telemachus absolutely enthralling to follow.
In a film full of characters who are sure of themselves and their motives, often to a destructive degree, Holland’s portrayal of a young prince still finding his aspirations and fears feels raw and real. One almost sees the film (or at least the parts set in Ithica) via his point of view, as the degree of uncertainty that can be felt in the character feels a lot more relatable than the defining traits of most characters around him. Holland was also such a perfect casting choice to play the offspring of Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway’s characters; the actor looks the part as he basically has his eyes and her smile, and his performance channels both Hathaway’s Penelope and Damon’s Odysseus while still making the character his own.
3. Samantha Morton as Circe
The divinely talented Samantha Morton only appears in one sequence, but dammit if that isn’t the highlight of the whole three-hour epic, largely thanks to her utterly captivating performance. I’m not all that well-versed in Greek mythology, so I mostly remembered the character Circe from the Percy Jackson novels - but at least based on those recollections, this portrayal encompasses everything Circe could and should be.
First of all, as anyone who saw her as Alpha in The Walking Dead will know, Morton is one of the all-time greats when it comes to acting genuinely creepy. But the scary side of it is just the tip of the iceberg: that’ll reel you in when you arrive at that part of the film, but what will convince you of the performance’s greatness is stuff like the magnetic facial expressions and line deliveries, and the pain of the character’s backstory that can be read between the lines.
2. Matt Damon as Odysseus
Not to take anything away from his brilliant body of work from Good Will Hunting through The Departed all the way to The Martian - but I believe that this right here is the best Matt Damon performance to date. The world-class leading man has outdone himself again, and while he didn’t quite take the #1 spot today, that is more about the unbeatable power of a certain other performance than it is about anything wrong in this performance. Damon hits all the right notes, painting the protagonist in a complex light in complete lockstep with Nolan’s script and the underlying themes.
The way he carries the lonesome scenes, the riveting interactions with his co-stars at other times, and particularly his portrayal of PTSD and survivor’s guilt towards and throughout the film’s final act - very few can do what Matt Damon does at this level. In the prestigious category of leading performances in Chris Nolan films, this one beats DiCaprio in Inception, McConaughey in Interstellar, Bale in the Dark Knight trilogy, and basically everything except for the holy grail that is Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer. And honestly, it isn’t all that far behind that one either.
1. Anne Hathaway as Penelope
I was convinced that no performance in Anne Hathaway’s filmography will ever top her Oscar-winning role in Les Miserables (2012), but honestly, this one is giving Fantine a run for her money. The absolute icon brings every inch of her talent to the role of Penelope, making sure that every line delivery conveys deliberate, razor-sharp meanings and complex emotions. Throughout the film, Hathaway’s towering presence keeps the viewer invested in Penelope’s journey and fascinated in her story, and she has a unique chemistry with each co-star she interacts with in order to make the character relationships as compelling as possible. Absolute cinema.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I continue discussing the art of acting - as I rank the top 100 movie acting performances of all time.
No comments:
Post a Comment