Elliot Page May Be Playing Elpenor in The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan tackling The Odyssey is one of those ‘yes, of course that’s happening’ Hollywood moves, and the buzz around it for 2026 is exactly what you’d expect. First: it comes with some very recognizable ancient source material. Second: Nolan’s the kind of director who can get any actor he wants (and apparently, he did just that). The cast is loaded, and while most movies make cast announcements a done deal, this one’s become prime real estate for online arguments, half-baked rumors, and the world’s most opinionated speculation.

Let’s Talk About the Elephants in the Casting Room

The earliest round of hand-wringing was about who’s playing who. Some of it is the usual guessing game when you adapt Homer’s epic into a blockbuster: Does Nolan stick to the poem? Will Helen show up even though she’s not a central character this time? Where’s my favorite Greek beefcake? But then things started getting louder and dumber, especially around Lupita Nyong'o purportedly playing Helen of Troy. Never mind that Helen’s only got a walk-on part in The Odyssey compared to her star role in The Iliad—some people were just not having it, for reasons that basically boil down to 'she doesn’t look like the last actress who played Helen.'

More recently, another rumor got the internet in a lather: Elliot Page as some kind of spirit version of Achilles. The reaction to this was predictable and boring—some people apparently can’t picture Achilles as anyone other than Brad Pitt, circa 2004, glistening and golden-haired. However, just as the takes were reaching peak tiresomeness, a different rumor crept up that actually fits The Odyssey way better.

What’s Actually Going On With Elliot Page’s Role?

Here’s what the internet is (maybe accidentally) getting right: those quick shots of Page in the trailer, dirty and pretty worse-for-wear, are not Achilles at all. The far more believable rumor is that they’re playing Elpenor—the youngest, arguably most tragic, and easily the most overlooked member of Odysseus’s crew.

Quick refresher on Elpenor, the Youngest Crewman:

• He survives both the Trojan War and an encounter with the giant cannibals known as the Laestrygonians (which, if the trailer’s anything to go by, are those massive armored guys mowing down the Greeks in the woods).
• He makes it with Odysseus all the way to Circe’s island, Aeaea. Things go south for him there—not in battle, but because he drunkenly falls off a roof and dies. Not exactly Achilles-level glory.
• Odysseus, who’s got a lot on his mind, leaves the body behind unburied. Later, when Odysseus visits the underworld, Elpenor’s the first ghost he meets, immediately guilt-tripping him about the whole not-burying-the-body thing—also reminding him he’s maybe not the world’s most attentive leader or family man.

Why does this fit? In the new trailer, there’s a tense moment where Page’s character says:
'Who’s looking after your wife and son?' That’s ripped straight from Elpenor’s story—he’s the ghost nudging Odysseus in all the worst places, both as a neglected subordinate and as a reminder of the home he left behind.

This Casting Actually Makes Sense (For Once)

So, no, Elliot Page isn’t some spectral Achilles coming to wax philosophical in the underworld. He’s probably Elpenor, which is a bigger win for the movie’s emotional punch. Think about it: Elpenor is young, doomed, and the literal casualty of Odysseus’s distraction and ambition. Page has the range for someone who’s a little naïve, a little angry, and selling both tragedy and warning—all in one ghostly, mud-caked package.

It’s worth noting that with Nolan, the odds are good he’ll stick to the emotional backbone of the poem, even if he does his usual time-warping trickery. And if that’s the case, casting Page as Elpenor is both a clever twist and, honestly, one of the few casting rumors about this movie that actually checks out with what Homer wrote.

For anyone still pining for Brad Pitt to stroll back in as Achilles, you’ll just have to rewatch Troy and accept that Nolan’s probably got a little more literary faith in The Odyssey—and maybe a little more faith in the audience, too—than your average sword-and-sandals epic.