Anne Hathaway gave a global press interview this week that included ERTnews, and what she revealed about playing Penelop...

Anne Hathaway gave a global press interview this week that included ERTnews, and what she revealed about playing Penelope in Christopher Nolan's Odyssey went well beyond the usual Hollywood promotional circuit. Hathaway, currently in the final weeks of her third pregnancy after appearing in five films in 2026 alone, described the first days of shooting as genuinely disorienting. Not because she couldn't understand Penelope, but because she couldn't stop knowing too much. She told Nolan on day three that her transitions between thoughts felt off, because each time she moved from one of Penelope's states of mind to the next, she felt like she had to leap over centuries of accumulated history. To get closer to the ancient Greek world, she went beyond reading the Odyssey itself. She tracked down a biblical scholar's book on the Epistle to the Hebrews and its relationship to ancient Greek, which helped her trace how Greek moral concepts were later transformed through Judeo-Christian ethics. Specific Greek words became what she called entry points into the character. "Arkhigos" and "kakia," meaning leader and wickedness, were two she held onto. She would stand backstage looking at the suitors and simply think the word "kakia." Her reading of Penelope rejected the idea that patience and fidelity are passive virtues. Hathaway described a woman who had spent twenty years in a state of loss without confirmed loss, grief without permission to grieve, and power that could never be openly exercised. She said Penelope is Odysseus's equal in strategy and cunning, and that her mask of patience is part of her armor, functioning as a weapon as much as a genuine quality. On her dynamic with Matt Damon's Odysseus, she described two people who are fully aware of how rare their bond is in an era when marriage was primarily political. Her analogy was unexpectedly vivid: she imagined them as two people who both love motorcycles. Penelope can absolutely ride her own, but she loves riding with Odysseus. #AnneHathaway #NolansOdyssey #Greece