“Ithaca’s king is coming home.” But when Oscar season arrives, where will the Academy welcome back its queen?

Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey” opened to a massive box office haul and an avalanche of critical praise, vaulting it to the front of the Oscar race months before the fall festivals begin. But the question already dominating awards conversations isn’t whether the film will contend (we already know it will). It’s where Universal will elect to campaign Oscar winner Anne Hathaway, who plays Penelope, wife of Odysseus (Matt Damon) and mother of Telemachus (Tom Holland), fending off suitors in her husband’s absence.

Lead or supporting? It’s the season’s first real strategic inquiry among awards enthusiasts, and the Academy’s own record book argues both ways — including one cautionary precedent from Nolan’s last epic to which Hathaway’s team will have to pay very special attention.

Universal is expected to mount an aggressive awards campaign, hoping to deliver Nolan a second best picture and best director victory just three years after “Oppenheimer.” In Variety’s Oscar analysis, our current projection shows a path that tops out at 17 nominations. Sixteen would tie the record set just last season by Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” which surpassed the long-standing mark of 14 shared by “All About Eve” (1950), “Titanic” (1997) and “La La Land” (2016).

However, don’t expect an answer anytime soon. Nolan has long avoided awards strategy conversations until well after a film opens, meaning category discussions with the studio and talent are unlikely to begin in earnest until later this fall — at least not formally.

For Hathaway, “The Odyssey” anchors a busy year that has already included the blockbuster “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” and the well-received (but financially disappointing) “Mother Mary.” Still to come are the end-of-summer thriller “The End of Oak Street” and the Colleen Hoover adaptation “Verity.”

Vote splitting across multiple films is unlikely to be Hathaway’s biggest concern. The more pressing question is which category offers the clearest path to a nomination — and perhaps a second Oscar after “Les Misérables” (2012) in supporting actress. In addition, there’s also the matter of whether her placement will help or hurt another viable contending co-star: Samantha Morton, whose Circe has drawn some of the film’s loudest raves.

The good news for Hathaway is that whatever is ultimately chosen, there isn’t a category fraud debate to be had. Every year we have a few contenders that can go either way, depending on how voters feel. Think back to examples like Maria Bello in “A History of Violence” (2005) or Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006). 

There’s a compelling argument for either category, based on audience reaction and on the voters themselves. And interestingly, the Oscar history books read like a coin flip.

Let’s start with the basics. Across his entire filmography, Nolan’s films have produced only four acting nominations. The good news for whoever gets campaigned: three of those four converted. Heath Ledger won supporting actor for “The Dark Knight” (2008). Cillian Murphy won lead actor and Robert Downey Jr. won supporting actor for “Oppenheimer” (2023). So while Nolan’s performers rarely earn acting nominations, when they do, they often win.

The bad news is that fourth name, and it belongs to one of Hathaway’s “besties.”

The last time Nolan built a sprawling ensemble around a great man, making perilous choices and handing the wife the emotional load, that actress was Emily Blunt in “Oppenheimer.” She campaigned in supporting, was nominated, and eventually lost to Da’Vine Joy Randolph in “The Holdovers” — on a night when “Oppenheimer” won seven Academy Awards, including best picture, director and both of the other acting categories it was up for.

That is a scenario Universal and Hathaway’s team have to game out. Like Blunt’s Kitty Oppenheimer, Penelope serves as the emotional anchor while her husband’s story unfolds elsewhere. It’s a role the Academy frequently nominates but one that doesn’t always translate into a win.

Of the 90 supporting actress winners in Oscar history, 56 of them (or 62%) came from a film nominated for best picture. Still, only 14 (or 16%) came from the film that actually won it. Riding the year’s juggernaut gets you on the ballot, but it does not, often enough, get you to the podium.

But if a studio wants to double dip in an acting category, supporting actress is where it works best — the race most likely to recognize two or more performers from the same film. It has happened 37 times, compared with 23 in supporting actor, 12 in lead actor and only five in lead actress. If Universal campaigns Hathaway in supporting alongside Morton, it’s the most common double-double in Academy history.

The problem is how rarely one of those women walks away with the trophy. In those 37 cases, one of the two nominees won 13 times (or 35%). That means nearly two out of three times, a film lands two supporting actress nominations, and both women go home empty-handed. It happened as recently as last season, when “Sentimental Value” put up Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and the category went to Amy Madigan for “Weapons.”

When you sort those 37 films by how they fared in best picture, it actually reveals an illuminating pattern. I grouped every case into three buckets and tracked how often one of the two nominated actresses actually won:

So in other words, the double is a strong play only if Universal genuinely believes “The Odyssey” is winning the top prize. Short of that, it has produced far more consolation nominations than statuettes.

So what about a lead actress run? Well, no Nolan film has ever produced a lead actress nominee. Campaigning Hathaway in lead would ask Academy voters to recognize the first female lead performance of his career — and for a studio that has openly signaled it wants history alongside its trophies, that’s the kind of hook voters can repeat back to one another. That would open up the possibility of “The Odyssey” joining the list of 15 other films that have been nominated in all four acting categories, which began with “My Man Godfrey” (1936) to “American Hustle” (2013). 

There’s a risk to this move.

Campaigning what some may perceive as a supporting role in lead can leave a performance just outside the lineup, as it did for Richard Gere in “Chicago” (2002) and Chase Infiniti in “One Battle After Another” (2025) — both best picture winners, and both had four other acting noms that missed out in a key category.

Obviously, Morton’s possible return could complicate matters further. Nolan shared publicly that her Circe drew an on-set ovation from the crew, something he hadn’t seen since Ledger on “The Dark Knight.” That’s a valuable endorsement for the season ahead. She’s also carrying her own narrative that supporting actress can reward. Morton has two previous noms, supporting for “Sweet and Lowdown” (1999) and lead for “In America” (2003), and hasn’t been on a ballot since. An overdue veteran with an unforgettable single sequence in a prestige juggernaut is, on paper, precisely what the Academy membership could find irresistible.

If forced to project today, I’d lean toward supporting as the safer route to a nom, but whether it yields a win depends almost entirely on whether Morton’s buzz turns out to be real.

Universal has until fall festival season to decide, and history offers compelling arguments for either strategy with no definitive answer. That’s precisely what makes Hathaway’s category placement one of the season’s earliest — and most fascinating — Oscar questions.