43 year–old Lupita Nyong’o, whose forthcoming performance as Helen of Troy in Chris Nolan’s The Odyssey will challenge general awareness of ancient Greek history, has admitted she’d never heard of Homer’s “The Odyssey” before Nolan hired her.
This despite having previously earned a bachelor’s degree in drama at Hampshire College, and a master’s degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama.
I’m not presuming that a woman this well-educated would necessarily be an “Odyssey” scholar or had read the whole ancient poem or even knew the basic gist or had possibly seen the Kirk Douglas film version. But she’d never even heard of it.
How do you think she managed that?
I knew a little something about “The Odyssey” from my Ancient & Medieval History class in tenth grade. And I’d seen the Douglas flick somewhere…possibly on the tube.