Matt Damon Reveals The Freezing, Soaked Reality Of Filming Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
One star just went all in for a Christopher Nolan project—career on the line, stakes sky-high, buzz immediate.
Christopher Nolan is not exactly known for spa-day shoots, and his new epic The Odyssey sounds like the full body ice bath. Matt Damon says he dropped almost 20 pounds and spent a lot of the production wet, cold, and hungry. The twist: he also says it might be one of his favorite gigs ever.
The setup: a brutal shoot he actually loved
Damon jumped on Netflix's Still Watching podcast to talk about his new movie with Ben Affleck, The Rip, shout out his love of Boston, and then get into The Odyssey, which is shaping up to be one of 2026's big-ticket releases. He plays Odysseus, fighting his way home after the Trojan War, and the film leans hard into the treacherous stuff from the myth. Nolan went practical, which meant a lot of time at sea, battling real wind and real waves. If you caught the trailer, you can see exactly what he was up against.
According to Damon, the job was relentless. He was soaked, freezing, hungry, and uncomfortable basically every day. He says if you had offered him this movie 20 years ago, he probably could not have gotten through it, or at least would have been miserable doing it. Now, though, he feels like it hit at exactly the right moment in his life and career, and he is still unpacking how much it affected him.
Chasing a David Lean-sized adventure (on film, literally)
Damon treated The Odyssey like his shot at a true old-school epic. He framed it as his chance to make something on the scale of a David Lean adventure, and maybe the last giant picture actually shot on film he will get to make. The production pushed him to his limit, but he says he genuinely enjoyed every minute of it. The big takeaway for him: you cannot control what happens out there, but you can control how you respond to it. That sounds like a motivational poster, but he admits it is harder to live than to say, and on this movie he felt it for real.
There was also some nostalgia baked in. Getting a part this meaty, with a director he respects, alongside a crew he loves, on a story this massive reminded him why he got into the business in the first place.
A tip from the set that stuck
Damon credits a Navy SEAL named Duffy, who has worked with Nolan on multiple films, with reframing the misery factor in a way that actually helped:
"You never remember how cold you were. You never remember. That is a fleeting feeling, and it is going to pass. And you are going to be warm again, you are just not warm now. So get comfortable in the discomfort. Just see it for what it is. It is not forever."
Where this lands in Damon x Nolan world
Damon has been in Nolan movies before, including Interstellar and Oppenheimer, but this is the first time he is front and center for the whole ride. The hardship was not movie magic; the weight loss and the day-to-day grind were real, and he sounds grateful for it. Based on how he talks about the experience, this could be Nolan's biggest, most ambitious swing yet. I am very ready to see the completed thing on the biggest screen I can find.
The Odyssey hits theaters on July 17, 2026.