05/21/2026
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Christopher Nolan knew () would play Calypso in from the start.
In Homer’s telling, the sea nymph keeps Odysseus captive on her island for seven years. Calypso is a mass of contradictions, a lustrous goddess powerful enough to hold Odysseus but powerless to make him want to stay—or to overrule Zeus when he orders her to release her lover home to his wife. Is Calypso a villain, a tragic figure, or just a woman who fixates, as many of us have, on an unavailable man? “I see her as all of those things and also none of those things,” she says. “She’s a little bit of everything.” Nolan, who calls Theron “one of the great actresses of her generation,” says he admires her ability to create iconic, larger-than-life characters while also projecting their inner life. “Charlize fully embraced the high-wire act we wanted to pull off with this character,” the director says.
For ELLE’s 2026 Summer Issue, Theron reflects on the intense stunts she endured on set, what she learned from playing Calypso, and her passion for supporting up-and-coming actresses coming up in the industry: “I feel like I’m in a place of incredible privilege.”
ELLE:
Editor-in-chief: Nina Garcia
Photographer: Norman Jean Roy
Stylist: Law Roach
Writer: Sara Austin
Hair: Adir Abergel at A-Frame Agency
Makeup: Kate Lee at Forward Artists
Manicure: Emi Kudo for Dior Le Baume
Set design: Marla Weinhoff at 11th House Agency
Produced by Alexey Galetskiy Productions
