NEED TO KNOW
Matt Damon lost weight and adopted a strict lifestyle to prepare for his role as Odysseus in The Odyssey
The film, directed by Christopher Nolan, was shot across five countries and described by Damon as his hardest project
Damon says his daughter’s rare praise for his performance made the intense filming experience completely worthwhile
Matt Damon had a warrior’s mindset preparing for The Odyssey.
In the Christopher Nolan–directed epic, Matt Damon’s King Odysseus is lashed by stormy seas, hunted by a Cyclops and thrown into a forest teeming with bloodthirsty giants. Preparing to turn back the clock for the adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek poem, Damon dropped to 167 pounds — his high school weight.
“I didn’t change it in an unhealthy way,” Damon tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “I think if I had done the opposite and put weight on, that would have been dangerous and it’s not something I’ll do anymore. I was happy to do it earlier in my life.”
Matt Damon got down to his high school weight to play Odysseus in ‘The Odyssey.’
Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
To play the tortured, complicated Odysseus, who voyages for 20 years to return to his wife (Anne Hathaway) and son (Tom Holland), Damon gave up gluten, “among other things,” he says.
“It was more about just getting really, really physically fit, which just really involves changing your diet, just a whole lifestyle change,” Damon adds. “You have to just be very, very intentional about everything you’re putting in your body.”
Damon says he found inspiration in the daily push made by everyone on set of The Odyssey, which was shot across Iceland, Scotland, Greece, Italy and Morocco.
The star infamously put on weight for his role in 2009’s “The Informant!”
Credit: Groundswell Prods/Kobal/Shutterstock
“This movie was by far the hardest movie to the most challenging movie I’ve ever been a part of,” says Damon, with those involved “completely maxing out and straining against what they thought was possible.”
It was all or nothing, he says, as cast and crew navigated creating IMAX-worthy gods and monsters based on the Homeric poem, which is estimated to have been composed in the 8th century.
“It really felt more like an expedition than a movie,” he notes. “And if you were cold and wet, you just turned and you looked and Chris was just as cold and just as wet and going through it.”
Matt Damon says he’s embracing this “phase of life.”
Credit: Gavin Bond
By the end of each week, he adds, “people were just running on fumes. But that feeling of elation when we would get to the end of a week and we’d look around and it was a real sense of pride like, ‘Okay, that’s another week.’ And I would go home like everyone else and just kind of sleep, get my rest and be ready for Monday. I loved every minute of it.”
And in the end, the most important review came from the Oscar winner’s own home.
“I have one daughter who’s really not reverential at all about [my movies] and loves to give me s—,” says Damon. “She saw The Odyssey, and at the end she actually turned to me and she said, ‘Dad, I’m proud of you.'” He laughs. “She’s never said anything like that, because we joke around a lot. At that point I was kind of like, ‘I’m good. It was all worth it.'”
The Odyssey hits theaters everywhere Thursday, July 16.
For more on Matt Damon and The Odyssey, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, available everywhere Friday.
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