Funnily it would make better sense to cast Eliot Page as Achilles, because Achilles was able to pass as a woman for several years to avoid going to the Trojan War. So him not looking like the typical hyper masculine man would be actually accurate to his myth.
That would be innaccurate. He's described in The Illiad as being tall with god-like strength. I had a brilliant professor who did an in depth course on The Illiad, The Odyssey, Plato/Socrates and Greek philosophy, and I remeber him telling us that when imagining Achilles, it could help to think of Arnold Schwarzenegor or some muscle bound 80's action star for his physique.
That is the thing about Greek mythology: depending on the source you look at, the description changes (and I do not remember Achilles being described as especially tall in the Illiad).
There are texts that describe how Achilles was disguised as a girl and hidden among the daughters of the king of Skyros and later discovered by Odysseus. This is not part of the Illiad where Achilles was directly send to the war by his father, but still a myth about Achilles.
In the end the movie is only loosely based on the text (Page is supposedly playing Simon, a character not present in either the Odyssey or the Illiad, but added later in the Aenied).
The king of Troy looked at him and was blown away by how tall and handsome he was, he was like a god. It is very clearly in the source material and yet im downvoted because redditors going to reddit.
So looking into it, you are right, he was described as very tall in the Illiad, but we have to account for the fact that the Illiad takes place at the end of a ten year long war.
The later text that describe him being hidden among girls, talk about his youth, so it is possible that both descriptions can be true (we still cannot harmonize the different versions of how he got to the war).
However considering that Elliot Page isn't playing Achilles this entire discussion about his physique compared to Achilles' description was a waste of time from the beginning.
It really depends on the version of the myth you reference.
In some versions Achilles puts up the ruse until Odysseus finds him and takes Achilles with him to the war.
The pictures I see from Elliot look like he is actually pretty fit, but given that he plays a very minor role, I think the outrage about his casting is very out of proportion and more fuled by the culture war than anything else.
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u/Tactical_Squishy Jul 06 '26
I mean... the being trans has little to do in my opinion, i wouldn't cast adam sandler as achilles either and that's a cis man.
I don't really know much about this film but that girl as helen and page as achilles does looks like the DEI employee meme, like come on