Elliot Page May Be Playing Elpenor, Not Achilles, in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’
Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ has barely had time to breathe between trailers before the internet erupted into full speculation mode. The film, set for release on July 17, 2026, carries one of the most jaw-dropping ensemble casts in recent memory, with Matt Damon leading as Odysseus, Tom Holland as his son Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, Zendaya as Athena, and Charlize Theron as Circe. With a project this massive and mythologically rich, it was only a matter of time before the rumor mill went into overdrive.
Elliot Page is among a group of cast members listed with undisclosed supporting roles, and that ambiguity has been the engine behind weeks of online debate. Nolan has a well-documented history of keeping character identities secret, a pattern fans saw play out with Marion Cotillard in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, where she was billed under a false name throughout production before her true role was revealed. That precedent has only added fuel to the speculation surrounding Page.
The loudest rumor making the rounds has been that Page is set to portray Achilles, the legendary Greek warrior. But a new theory has now entered the conversation and it may actually make far more narrative sense. According to a post that has racked up 2.6 million views on X, Page is expected to play Elpenor, the youngest and least celebrated member of Odysseus’s crew, rather than the war-hardened hero Achilles.
In Homer’s epic, Elpenor is the youngest man to survive the Laestrygonians. While Odysseus and his crew were staying on Aeaea, Circe’s island, Elpenor became drunk and climbed onto the roof of Circe’s palace to sleep. The next morning, waking to the sounds of his comrades preparing to depart, he forgot he was on the roof, fell, and broke his neck. His spirit then became the first shade Odysseus encountered during the nekyia, his descent into the underworld, where Elpenor pleaded for a proper burial to avoid becoming a source of divine wrath. It is a small but emotionally resonant role, one that orbits themes of mortality, forgotten duty, and the cost of recklessness.
The Elpenor theory carries a certain logic that the Achilles rumor arguably lacks. Elpenor’s role in ‘The Odyssey’ serves to emphasize Odysseus’s shortcomings as a leader, with the young man’s death forcing the hero to confront his responsibilities as both a captain and a king. It is exactly the kind of layered, thematically dense supporting part that a filmmaker like Nolan would craft with intention. Page, who has proven their dramatic range across projects like ‘The Umbrella Academy’, would bring genuine emotional texture to a character so often dismissed as a footnote in classical literature.
Nolan himself has stated that ‘The Odyssey’ is designed for audiences who may not have read Homer, while still honoring those who have a deeper relationship with the source material. Casting a trans actor in the role of mythology’s most famously ordinary young man, a crew member defined not by strength or glory but by vulnerability and an undignified end, could be one of the film’s quieter and more meaningful choices.
None of this is confirmed, and the Achilles rumor has not been officially put to rest either. But if the Elpenor theory holds, it suggests Nolan’s vision for ‘The Odyssey’ is more interested in the humans at the margins of the myth than in simply restaging its most famous battles. Share your thoughts in the comments below, whether you think Page is Elpenor, Achilles, or someone else entirely.
