For months, fans had one theory locked in about Elliot Page’s role in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: Achilles. The rumor spread everywhere online, even though the studio never confirmed a word of it.
That guessing game is officially over. The film’s cast credits and final trailers have revealed who Page is actually playing, and it’s not the legendary Greek warrior fans expected.
Page stars as Sinon, a far less famous but arguably more consequential figure in the story of Troy’s downfall. Nolan has also reworked the character into a Greek soldier and Odysseus’s cousin, played by Matt Damon, placing Sinon much closer to the film’s core narrative than the mythology originally allows.
Who Is Sinon in Greek Mythology?
Here’s the twist: Sinon doesn’t actually appear in Homer’s Odyssey at all. His story comes from later classical sources, most notably Virgil’s Aeneid and the lost Epic Cycle’s Iliupersis, which detailed Troy’s final fall.
In those accounts, Sinon is the mastermind behind the Greeks’ most famous con. When the Greek army fakes a retreat and leaves the wooden horse behind, Sinon stays put outside Troy’s walls, posing as an abandoned prisoner. He then spins a story convincing the Trojans that the horse is a sacred offering that guarantees divine protection if brought into the city.
It works. The Trojans drag the horse through their own gates, never suspecting that Greek soldiers are hiding inside. Once night falls, those soldiers slip out, throw open the gates for the returning army, and Troy falls. Sinon doesn’t win with a sword. He wins with a lie, making him one of mythology’s most effective manipulators.
Why Casting Page as Sinon Changes the Story
Bringing Sinon into The Odyssey tells us Nolan isn’t sticking strictly to Homer’s text. By drawing on later sources, the film ties Odysseus’ journey home directly to the event that started it all: the fall of Troy.
Making Sinon a cousin of Odysseus adds a personal layer to the deception, too. The fall of Troy stops being a distant historical event and becomes something that hits close to home for Odysseus, tangled up with loyalty, guilt, and the cost of war, before he even sets sail for Ithaca.
The casting also puts months of Achilles speculation to rest once and for all. Achilles is a warrior remembered for his brute strength on the battlefield. Sinon is the opposite: a character who reshapes history through calculated lies and psychological manipulation.
Casting Page in that role signals a performance built on tension, intelligence, and persuasion rather than combat, a strong hint at how far Nolan is willing to reinterpret this mythology.
The Odyssey opens in theaters on July 17.
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