The women of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey got separate covers of Elle Magazine ahead of the July premiere. The covers: Lupita Nyong’o (Helen of Troy), Zendaya (Athena), Anne Hathaway (Penelope) and Charlize Theron (Calypso). I’m covering everyone separately! This post is for Lupita and her interview. She and Nolan’s team clearly knew that there would be (racist) backlash to Lupita’s casting as Helen, but Lupita is taking it in stride. Somewhat hilariously, she wasn’t even familiar with Greek mythology or The Iliad and The Odyssey before she read this script. She talks about that and much, much more with Elle, and the magazine also got some exclusive photos from the film. Some highlights:

Saying yes to Helen of Troy: When her agents informed her that [Chris] Nolan wanted to see her for a role, she admits that she “went in quite blind.” During their meeting, he gave her the script, and she read it in one sitting. She was immediately all in. “I mean, I was saying yes even before he told me what role it was.”

She didn’t know much about Greek myths: “I really had no idea what The Odyssey was. 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.” And by “picked up the books,” she really means she read The Odyssey and listened to The Iliad, and for good reason. “Audra McDonald reads it,” she says by way of explanation, in between sips of hot lemon water. “It is the best audiobook I have ever listened to.”

Playing Helen of Troy & Clytemnestra. “I was so deeply honored to be entrusted with the role. I mean, she is iconic. What more can I say?”

Christopher Nolan on why he cast Lupita: “The strength and the poise were so important to the character of Helen. And Lupita makes it look effortless. I’m sure there’s a tremendous amount of discipline and training that goes into projecting that kind of poise and feeling the emotion bubbling beneath the character, the layers of the character right there underneath. She’s just an incredible person to work with, and I was absolutely desperate for her to do the part.”

Lupita on being cast as “the face that launched a thousand ships”: “You can’t perform beauty. 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. The research could be endless. The good thing about working with a writer like Chris is that it’s on the page. The investigation starts with the pages you’re given. That’s what I based it on.”

On the racist critiques about the decision to cast her as a Greek character. She reminds those who may have forgotten, “this is a mythological story.” “I’m very supportive of Chris’s intention with it and with the version of this story that he is telling. Our cast is representative of the world. I’m not spending my time thinking of a defense. The criticism will exist whether I engage with it or not.” She elaborates on this thought at another point in the conversation, saying, “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.”

She still carries Patsey from ‘12 Years a Slave’ with her. “I carry her pain with me, in a very beautiful way, not in a burdensome way. I think it keeps me grounded to know what it costs for me to be here. It’s because of that history.”

Her 12-year battle with fibroids: In 2014, she was diagnosed with fibroids. At the time, she decided to get a myomectomy, a procedure to remove them, but they came back, unbeknown to her. Though she was being checked on an annual basis, a decade after her surgery, she discovered that she had even more. “No alarm was sounded until I learned that I had 50,” she says. “Again, I was told, ‘You can either live with it or get another surgery.’ And I thought to myself, ‘How has my fibroid burden changed, and the options you have for me have not? This doesn’t sound right.’…Just because something is common doesn’t make it normal. How have we as women internalized the de-prioritization of our own pain, and what can we do to reverse that? I’m sounding the alarm for myself, because I have normalized my own pain for too long. I needed to participate in seeing the change that I want to happen. The one thing I knew I could do, because this is my line of work, is storytelling. I can tell my story and then join forces with other people who care as much as I do.”

Her future as an actress: “I hope that my career spans a very long time, and I want to be as vibrant as Amy Madigan. I want it to be long and storied and surprising.” And she’ll carry an encouraging mantra with her along the way. “Go where you’re loved,” she says. “I was talking to students at Yale yesterday, and the very teacher who put me on tape for 12 Years a Slave was interviewing me. She read out all the directors I’ve worked with, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, when you put it like that.…’ And in that moment, I was reminded that I am loved. So I can’t spend my time thinking about all the people who still don’t love me. You’ll find the representatives who believe in you, and you’ll get on with it. I want to believe I’m built to last.”

[From Elle]

“Go where you’re loved” is an amazing mantra, and you’ll quickly figure out how often you’re in situations where you’re NOT loved or even welcomed. Of course, it’s also the sad responsibility for many women of color to enter professional spaces where they’re not loved or respected, and they do it because that’s the only way to break through certain glass ceilings. As for Helen of Troy… I like Lupita’s perspective of “I’m not spending my time thinking of a defense. The criticism will exist whether I engage with it or not.” That’s so true, and it’s healthier for her to disengage in some ways. I hope that Nolan and the producers don’t disengage though – I’d like to see passionate defenses of the choice to cast Lupita. I’m still amazed that Nolan did that, btw. It’s one of his most interesting casting choices in the history of his filmography.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, cover courtesy of Elle.