Christopher Nolan says Travis Scott casting in The Odyssey nods to rap’s oral tradition

Christopher Nolan has framed Travis Scott’s casting in The Odyssey as more than a celebrity stunt. In a new interview, the director said he brought the rapper into the film because he wanted to gesture toward the way Homer’s story has survived through oral poetry, something he described as analogous to rap.

The film, Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic Greek poem, stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, the warrior trying to make it home after the Trojan War. Tom Holland plays Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, and the cast also includes Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Benny Safdie, Elliot Page, Samantha Morton and Mia Goth.

Scott first appeared in the movie’s January teaser, where Holland’s Telemachus is interrupted by a commanding figure played by the rapper. In the brief scene, Scott’s character hushes a crowded hall and delivers a warning about the war to come: “A war, a man, a trick – a trick to break the walls of Troy,” he says, before the trailer cuts to images of the Trojan War and the line, “It burning, screaming to the ground.”