In her cover profile for Who What Wear, Lupita Nyong’o pulls back the curtain on pulling double duty in Christopher Nolan’s fiercely guarded summer blockbuster The Odyssey, her rigorous character discipline, and how she quietly recovered from major surgery while prepping for the cultural event of the season.
The Ultimate Mythological Double Duty
As Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated, heavily shrouded adaptation of The Odyssey heads toward theaters with an all-star cast including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, and Charlize Theron, early discourse has been entirely preoccupied with Helen of Troy.
When asked how it feels to be cast as the legendary face that launched a thousand ships, Nyong’o enthusiastically owns it: “Really well… No, I do love this for me.”
But the true acting masterclass lies in the fact that Nyong’o pulls double duty, also portraying Helen’s twin sister, Clytemnestra—the tortured queen who assassinates her husband Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) in retribution for sacrificing their daughter. It’s a full-circle moment for Nyong’o, who first tackled the tragic Greek figure as a student at the Yale School of Drama.
The Extreme Discipline of Playing Twins
To pull off Nolan’s twist of making Helen and Clytemnestra identical twins, Nyong’o relied on her elite training and past psychological thrillers.
- The Blueprint: She drew confidence from her dual doppelgänger roles in Jordan Peele’s Us, though she notes that Us was a far more exhausting technical challenge. “My role in Us, I was the Odysseus. It was more of a heavy lift to do Us than it was to be a really, really valuable and pivotal part of Odysseus’s journey.”
- The Craft: To separate the sisters, Nyong’o meticulously constructed distinct physical and vocal differences for each character. When pressed for the exact details of her methodology, she slyly holds back to protect the film’s secrets: “I can’t tell you that.”
Navigating the Shroud of the “Chris Nolan Experience”
Working with Nolan—a director who completely rejects the modern movie-marketing machine of overexposing film clips on TikTok and Instagram—suited Nyong’o perfectly. “I actually think that a lot of filmmakers want to be guarded about what they’re making, but the industry doesn’t allow them to be,” she says. “Chris has that power. He is that power.”
Healing in the Shadows
What makes Nyong’o’s discipline even more staggering is that she performed this massive dual role while navigating a severe, painful health crisis. Just this past May, right before the promotional storm hit, she underwent a major myomectomy surgery to remove over 50 fibroid tumors.
Instead of jumping straight back onto a red carpet, she implemented strict boundaries to protect her body. She spent a month in the countryside being cared for by her mother, Dorothy, walking daily and absorbing sunshine “like a wounded cat.”
Even while working on Nolan’s high-stakes set, her commitment to her body never wavered. She rigorously maintained an anti-inflammatory diet, prioritized sleep, and fought through the lingering discomfort of her surgical wound. It is a masterclass in professional execution, proving that Nyong’o is not just a director’s darling—she is one of the most resilient forces in modern cinema.
