After more than three decades in Hollywood and roughly 80 films under his belt, Matt Damon says no role has tested him quite like Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic, “The Odyssey.”
During an appearance on “Sunday Sitdown with Willi Geist,” the Academy Award winner, 55, opened up about the grueling physical demands of portraying Odysseus, the legendary king of Ithaca, admitting the ambitious production pushed both the cast and crew to their limits.
“He was like, ‘This movie’s gonna be hard.’ And I looked at him like, ‘I’ve made, I don’t know, 80 movies,'” Damon recalled of one of his early conversations with Nolan. “And he goes, ‘No. This movie’s gonna be really hard.’ He, to his credit, was not lying.”
“It was definitely the hardest movie I’ve ever done just because it was so ambitious, just because what he was trying to do,” Damon continued. “The prep and all that I had to do as a guy in his 50s, that was its own challenge. That was my own cross to bear, away from everybody.”
The 55-year-old actor said filming took the cast across demanding locations, from beaches in Morocco to mountaintops and boats in unpredictable conditions.
“There was a lot of physical discomfort. It felt more like an expedition than a movie,” Damon said. “Everybody was pushed to kind of the limit of what they could do. But the beauty of it is you look around and everyone is going through it with you.”
Despite the punishing conditions, Damon praised Nolan for leading by example.
“Directing is by far the hardest job on set,” he said. “When you’re out there kind of in the middle of a storm and you’re soaked and you’re cold and you’re like, ‘Man, I’m in discomfort right now,’ it is helpful to turn and see the person with the harder job … looking like a drowned rat, just as cold, just as wet, and never complaining.”
Damon has previously shared details about the intense physical transformation required to play the iconic Greek hero.
During an appearance on Travis and Jason Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast earlier this year, Damon revealed he lost a significant amount of weight after former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce remarked that the “Good Will Hunting” star looked “pretty yoked up” in viral photos from the film’s set.
“Yeah, I was in really good shape,” Damon said. “I lost a lot of weight.”
According to Damon, Nolan had a very specific vision for Odysseus.
“He said he wanted me lean but strong,” Damon explained. “It’s a weird thing.”
The Oscar winner said one major dietary change played a key role in helping him reach that goal.
“I literally, just because of this other thing I did with my doctor, stopped eating gluten,” Damon said. “I used to walk around between 185 and 200 pounds. And I did that whole movie at 167 pounds.”
“I haven’t been that light since high school,” he added. “So it was a lot of training and a really strict diet.”
Earlier this month, Damon elaborated on the lifestyle overhaul during an appearance on Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” podcast, revealing that giving up gluten permanently has been “life-changing.”
“It’s just a complete, complete lifestyle change,” Damon said after Poehler joked about him “getting jacked in your 50s.”
“There’s no planning it. Any other time I tried to do something like that, it was always like, ‘Well, my time, my workouts’… and this was like… just put your foot on the gas and that’s it. And that’s the only way to do it, and eat a little less.”
He said eliminating gluten unexpectedly transformed how he feels day to day.
“We didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t realize the level to which it was affecting me,” Damon said. “It’s completely changed my life these last couple years of not eating it. It’s a bummer. I’m a big fan of bread and beer, and pasta and pizza and all that stuff, but how I feel is just so much better.”