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Whoopi Goldberg is coming to Elliot Page’s defense amid criticism over his casting in The Odyssey.
On the Tuesday, July 21, episode of The View, Goldberg called out judgment over director Chistopher Nolan’s casting choices, pointing out that some conservative critics condemned the movie before it even hit theaters.
Some of The Odyssey’s pre-release criticism stemmed from the casting of Page, a trans man, as Greek soldier Sinon, while Lupita Nyongo’s casting as Helen of Troy also drew ire from some on the political right. (Page previously starred in Nolan’s 2010 epic Inception.)
“A lot of conservatives who see this are going to feel the same way. That’s OK. But I don’t understand … why go see the movie?” Goldberg said on The View. “If you don’t wanna see it, then don’t go see it. Why do you care who’s cast in it? I don’t understand this idea that if we hate it, everybody must hate it.”
The Oscar winner reiterated, “You don’t like Elliot Page? Don’t go see the damn movie. Don’t do it. We will be OK if you don’t go see it.”
“I don’t get why you have to poop on everything you don’t get,” Goldberg said, adding that “movies are not real.”
Goldberg’s cohost Alyssa Farrah Griffin, The View’s resident Republican voice and a former member of President Donald Trump’s administration, agreed with Goldberg.
“It is a masterpiece. It is a phenomenal film,” she said. “There’s actually a real conservative message … it’s about devotion to family, it’s about faith, it’s about upholding institutions, it’s about how war is dangerous and has repercussions for all of us. The fact that conservatives can’t take the win and just be like, ‘Oh no, this is a really excellent film with a good message for families,’ I’ll never understand that.”
“They’re stuck on woke,” cohost Joy Behar opined, to which Griffin responded, “There’s nothing woke in this film.”
The Odyssey, which also stars Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland and Zendaya, has earned over $300 million at the worldwide box office since its release just under a week ago.
For his part, Nolan previously said he wasn’t bothered by criticism over the movie’s casting choices.
“But look, these conversations that happen before people see the film – they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet,” he told the U.K.’s Telegraph earlier this month.
“All I can do is make the best film I possibly can in the most sincere way. It’s very different from how anyone else would do it, but that’s what adaptation is,” the director said.
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