Why does Odysseus have a Boston accent?

Matt Damon as Odysseus and Zendaya as Athena in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. | Universal Pictures After the first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s new film adaptation of The Odyssey dropped, a wave of conversation followed, part amused, part outraged: Why were all the actors, even the British ones, doing American accents? And why did the dialogue sound so contemporary? “My dad is coming home,” declares Tom Holland as Odysseus’s son Telemachus, with tight-mouthed American vowels despite…