Leguizamo brings blind servant Eumaeus to Nolan's The Odyssey
John Leguizamo plays Eumaeus, the blind, loyal servant of Odysseus, in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.
He talked through the part on The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast, recorded in front of students at Chapman University in California, as reported on 6 October 2026 by The Hollywood Reporter. Matt Damon plays Odysseus opposite him, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It is a servant's role at the centre of an epic.
Nolan cast against expectation. Leguizamo described the approach as non-traditional casting, meaning performers chosen outside the usual type for classical roles. The Odyssey is also the first film shot entirely with IMAX cameras, the large-format system built for the tallest theatre screens, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. The scale is huge. His character is quiet.
The transformation took work. He sat for three and a half hours in the make-up chair to play Eumaeus, according to Rotten Tomatoes. On screen he plays blind, working largely through voice and touch. Early notices have picked him out. The Hollywood Reporter called it a delicate, moving, heartbreaking performance and the heartbeat of the film, and reported that The Wall Street Journal called it the performance of his career.
That kind of awards talk is unfamiliar ground. Leguizamo has never received an Oscar nomination, the film prize voted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has won an Emmy Award for television and a special Tony Award for theatre, and he has received Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. His career spans stage, television and film. This is his first collaboration with Nolan.
He also revisited a famous near miss. Leguizamo was invited to play the Vulture, the winged villain, in Spider-Man: Homecoming before being uninvited. The superhero film was released in 2017, according to People. He was in negotiations until the studio asked him to step aside. He said the role went to Michael Keaton, and told The Independent he felt he was “used as pawn” to help lure Keaton to the part, according to The Independent.
What makes this stand out is the contrast in size. One role slipped away inside a big franchise machine. The other puts him, unrecognisable and unsighted, inside the biggest camera format in the business.
