Benny Safdie (born February 24, 1986, in New York City ) is an American filmmaker and actor. Safdie got his start making gritty, low-budget short films with his brother, Josh Safdie, in the 2000s. Frequently, both brothers served as writer and director, and Benny Safdie also often appeared as an actor. The pair eventually started working with well-known Hollywood actors, including Robert Pattinson in Good Time (2017) and Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems (2019), before setting out on independent careers in the early 2020s. After parting ways with his brother, Benny Safdie directed his first feature, The Smashing Machine (2025), and nurtured an acting career. He portrays the legendary ancient Greek king Agamemnon in Christopher Nolan ’s The Odyssey (2026). Safdie first worked with Nolan on the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer (2023), playing nuclear physicist Edward Teller .

Who’s Who in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: Cast List

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The Odyssey Matt Damon as Odysseus in The Odyssey (2026), directed by Christopher Nolan.

Who’s Who in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: Cast List

Q: Who is John Leguizamo?

John Leguizamo (born July 22, 1960, in Bogotá , Colombia ) is a Colombian-born American actor, writer, and comedian. Leguizamo grew up in New York City and began his entertainment career in the early 1980s as a stand-up comic . He later became a theater actor, especially known for writing and starring in several solo comedic shows, including Mambo Mouth (1991) and Klass Klown (2010). Leguizamo has also appeared in many films , including Carlito’s Way (1993), Romeo + Juliet (1996), and Summer of Sam (1999). He appears in Christopher Nolan ’s The Odyssey (2026) as Eumaeus, a swineherd in Ithaca , Greece, who shelters Odysseus upon his return home.

Q: Who is Samantha Morton?

Samantha Morton (born May 13, 1977, in Nottingham , England ) is an English film and television actress. She received Academy Award nominations for best actress ( In America [released 2002]) and best supporting actress ( Sweet and Lowdown [1999]). Morton began her television career as a teenager, appearing on such British shows as Band of Gold (1995–97) before her breakout film role in Under the Skin (1997). She later starred in a wide range of films, from Steven Spielberg ’s sci-fi action Minority Report (2002) to Charlie Kaufman ’s cerebral drama Synecdoche, New York (2008). She plays the sorceress Circe in Christopher Nolan ’s film The Odyssey (2026).

Q: Who plays Agamemnon in The Odyssey ?

Agamemnon is played by Benny Safdie in Christopher Nolan ’s The Odyssey (2026). Agamemnon is the king of Mycenae and commands the Greek army that fights the Trojan War . Safdie is an American actor and director who previously worked with Nolan on the Oscar-winning drama Oppenheimer (2023), in which he portrayed nuclear physicist Edward Teller . Find out more about the rest of the cast and the roles they play in Who’s Who in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey : Cast List .

A guide to the actors and characters in the epic film

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Will Gosner

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Who is John Leguizamo?

Who is Samantha Morton?

Who is Benny Safdie?

Who plays Agamemnon in The Odyssey?

The ancient Greek poem the Odyssey, attributed to Homer, has endured for thousands of years, partly by being translated, reinterpreted, and adapted into novel art forms. Modern audiences might know the story of Odysseus’s peripatetic journey home to Ithaca from any of its many film versions. The latest movie adaptation of the epic tale is The Odyssey (2026), written and directed by Christopher Nolan. The British filmmaker assembled an eclectic cast to play the heroes and goddesses, sorceresses and swineherds. In the table below, learn more about the actors and the characters they play. The descriptions reflect who the characters are in Homer’s version of the story and mention the most consequential changes that the film adaptation makes.

(The following table may contain spoilers.)

*The Odyssey*: Cast List
actor	role
Jon Bernthal	Menelaus: king of Sparta and younger son of Atreus, king of Mycenae. The abduction or elopement of his wife, Helen, leads to the Trojan War. During the war Menelaus serves under his elder brother Agamemnon, the commander in chief of the Greek forces.
Matt Damon	Odysseus: king of Ithaca, son of Laertes and Anticleia, and father, by his wife, Penelope, of Telemachus. A favorite of the goddess Athena, Odysseus is both wise and wily, a man of exceptional resourcefulness, courage, and eloquence. In the film, he is shown to be guilt-ridden about his role in the brutal infiltration and destruction of Troy.
Anne Hathaway	Penelope: daughter of Icarius of Sparta and the nymph Periboea and wife of the hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca. They have one son, Telemachus. Remarkable for her constancy and intelligence, Penelope devises delay tactics to discourage 108 aggressive suitors during Odysseus's 20-year absence.
Tom Holland	Telemachus: son of Odysseus and Penelope. Telemachus visits Pylos and Sparta in search of his wandering father and later returns to Ithaca.
Mia Goth	Melantho: treacherous attendant in the household of Penelope who reveals Penelope's ruse to delay marrying her suitors.
John Leguizamo	Eumaeus: swineherd in Ithaca who remains loyal to Odysseus. He helps Telemachus and Penelope keep the suitors at bay, and he shelters and helps Odysseus upon his return home.
Samantha Morton	Circe: sorceress feared for her ability to cause metamorphosis. Circe is able, by means of drugs and incantations, to change humans into wolves, lions, and other animals. In Homer's Odyssey she famously changes some of the companions of the Greek hero Odysseus into swine. Her magic fails against Odysseus himself, with whom she falls in love. In the movie, she does not show romantic interest in Odysseus.
Lupita Nyong'o	Helen of Troy: the most beautiful woman of Greece and the wife of Menelaus. She becomes the indirect cause of the Trojan War when she elopes with (or is kidnapped by) Paris, the son of the Trojan king. Nyong'o also plays Clytemnestra, the unfaithful wife of Agamemnon, whom Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus, murder. Clytemnestra is Helen's sister.
Elliot Page	Sinon: Greek soldier who persuades the Trojans to bring the Trojan horse inside the city walls. Sinon is not mentioned in Homer's Odyssey or Iliad. Instead, he first appeared in the Aeneid, a Latin epic poem written from about 30 to 19 bce by the Roman poet Virgil. In the film, he joins the Trojan War in place of Antinous, who makes Sinon a promise he does not keep.
Robert Pattinson	Antinous: the most prominent of Penelope's 108 suitors and the first to be killed by her husband, Odysseus, upon his return to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Antinous is the principal mortal antagonist in Homer's Odyssey. In the film, his cowardice and self-interest is highlighted more sharply, and he is the last to be killed by Odysseus.
Benny Safdie	Agamemnon: king of Mycenae and the brother of Menelaus. Agamemnon is the commander of the Greek army that fights the Trojan War for the recovery of Menelaus's wife, Helen. The spirit of Agamemnon is among those whom Odysseus meets when he descends to the underworld to consult the seer Tiresias.
Travis Scott	A bard: entertains the suitors of Penelope with a song that includes the line “A war, a man, a trick to break the walls of Troy and burn it straight into the ground!” Nolan said that he cast Scott, a rapper, to connect the idea of oral poetry with rap.
Charlize Theron	Calypso: a nymph of the mythical island of Ogygia. She entertains the Greek hero Odysseus for seven years, but she is unable to overcome his longing for home even by promising him immortality. In the film, she feeds Odysseus amnesic lotus flowers to suppress his memories—a plot point borrowed from a separate episode in Homer's Odyssey.
Zendaya	Athena: the Greek goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, and one of the 12 Olympians. She is the protector of the city of Athens. In Homer's Odyssey Athena frequently intervenes to help Odysseus return home and reclaim his throne. In Nolan's version, her intervention—and possibly her existence—is far more ambiguous.