Kelsey Grammer calls out Hollywood’s approach to historical adaptations like ‘Odyssey’

Kelsey Grammer has shared her bit amid the ongoing debate over how Hollywood handles diversity in historical and mythological adaptations.

He told a podcast that he finds it “a little exhausting” when films are seen as reshaping the past to fit modern ways of thinking, despite acknowledging he hasn’t seen the film cited to him as an example.

Appearing on The Katie Miller Podcast, hosted by the wife of White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, Grammer was asked directly about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey after Miller suggested that “Hollywood seems determined to reinvent nearly every classic, like The Odyssey, and distort it just a little bit to fit their views.” 

Grammer replied: “I haven’t seen The Odyssey, so I’m not really too aware of that,” before adding that some entertainment “hits me over the head” to a point where “it’s a little exhausting.” 

He went on to argue that historical settings were less multicultural than some modern adaptations portray them, saying: “I think old England is probably full of White people,” and that “I think historical significance should be respected a little bit, culturally.”

Grammer, who said he was nonetheless glad the film had been made, added a note of uncertainty about how far any single adaptation should stray from source material.

“I don’t know if they’ve, you know, pitched it too far in to our particular culture to divorce you from the idea of what actually happened.” 

His comments arrive amid broader, long-running debate in Hollywood over diverse casting in period and mythological projects, a conversation The Odyssey itself became caught up in after backlash over the casting of Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong’o in the film.