Zendaya wore literal angel wings to The Odyssey's New York premiere

Christopher Nolan shut down Lincoln Square on Tuesday night, wheeled a full-scale Trojan Horse onto the plaza outside AMC Lincoln Square, and lined the carpet with costumed soldiers for the New York premiere of The Odyssey. Then Zendaya turned up wearing actual wings, and nobody looked at the horse again.

She plays Athena, so the message was not subtle. The gown was a white Matieres Fecales piece with an asymmetrical strapless neckline and a feather-inspired train, topped with a set of large angel wings, styled by longtime collaborator Law Roach and finished with Chopard diamond earrings and a loose fishtail braid, according to People. Earlier the same day she left her hotel in a gold pleated silk chiffon Grecian gown from Pamela Rolland. If you are going to dress as the goddess of wisdom and war, you may as well change outfits between the hotel and the carpet.

This has been the entire press tour. On Monday she was photographed in a gold-embellished Alberta Ferretti dress with gladiator heels. Deadline described Tuesday's look as her channeling a "winged Greek goddess," which is a headline you can only earn by literally strapping on wings.

The casting story doing the numbers

The premiere is the victory lap for a bit that has been passed around all week: how she actually landed the part. Short version, the director did not tell her. Her husband did.

Tom Holland, who plays Odysseus's son Telemachus, told Access Hollywood that Nolan raised it with him first and framed it as a favor he was nervous to ask.

"It was such a gift because I know how much she's admired Chris. Interstellar is her favorite movie."

Holland said the two of them read the script together back when he was cast in 2024, and that when he sat down with Nolan, the director opened with, "Do you mind if I ask you a question, and please don't be offended by my asking." Holland assumed he was about to get notes on his height. Instead came, "Would you be offended if I asked Zendaya to play Athena?" His answer, per the interview: "Why would I be offended?"

Nolan then handed him the job of breaking the news, which Holland turned into a slow-burn prank. He went home, told Zendaya she should read the script again, and would not say why.

Zendaya gave her side to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

"I remember he came home and he was like, 'I need you to read something.' And I was like, 'Is that the thing we were just reading the other night?' And he's like, 'Yes. But now read it thinking of this character.' And I was like 'Shut up! You're joking!'"

She was not being joked with.

Two blockbusters, one married couple, one July

The wings are also good marketing math. Zendaya and Holland, who confirmed earlier this year that they got married, are about to share the screen twice in a month. The Odyssey opens July 17, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day follows on July 31. Nolan's cast around them is loaded: Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, plus Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo and Samantha Morton, most of whom also worked the New York carpet.

The Trojan Horse, for the record, is real and travels with the movie. It has been a marketing fixture since the countdown trailer, and on Tuesday it turned Broadway and 68th into a slab of pretend ancient Greece. It just had the bad luck of sharing a carpet with a woman in wings.

The Odyssey is in theaters July 17.