Long before starring in ‘The Odyssey’, Travis Scott was punished by his grandmother for not reading Homer’s epic poem.
In a new Variety cover story, Scott revealed that his paternal grandmother, Bernice Webster, an English professor, assigned the eighth-century BC poem as part of his summer reading when he was a child.
Rather than taking the assignment seriously, the ‘UTOPIA’ rapper rushed through the project because he was not interested. Scott told the publication that he relied on CliffsNotes instead of reading the book and was punished after lying about completing it.
Scott plays a bard in Christopher Nolan’s IMAX adaptation of the epic, which opened in cinemas on Friday, 17 July. His grandmother has since celebrated the full-circle moment.
“She’s like, ‘See? That’s why I made you read that book; now you’re in this movie,’” Scott said. “It’s actually crazy.”
The rapper now plans to take Bernice, his mother, Wanda Webster, and his maternal grandmother, Sealie Wood, to see the film. He also intends to book out a cinema for his family.
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Casting Scott was an intentional choice by Nolan. The filmmaker told TIME in May that he wanted “to nod toward the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap.”
Scott also contributed the song “When I’m Home”, created with James Blake and Ludwig Göransson, to the film. It comes six years after his single “The Plan” featured on the soundtrack for ‘Tenet’, which was also directed by Nolan.
