Matt Damon has made roughly 80 movies. He says nothing tested him as much as Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’

Matt Damon has spent over three decades in the film industry and starred in roughly 80 movies, but he says none of them prepared him for the intensity of Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic, The Odyssey. The 55-year-old actor opened up about the grueling nature of the project during an appearance on Sunday Sitdown with Willi Geist, Fox News reported.

It turns out that Nolan was very clear about the challenges ahead from the very beginning of their collaboration. “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. “And he goes, ‘No. This movie’s gonna be really hard.’ He, to his credit, was not lying.”

The production required the cast and crew to film in demanding locations, including mountaintops, boats, and beaches in Morocco. Damon described the experience as more of an expedition than a traditional film shoot. The physical discomfort was constant, and he noted that everyone involved was pushed to the absolute limit of their capabilities.

Despite the difficulty, Damon found a sense of camaraderie in the shared struggle

“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 said. “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.”

One thing that kept the cast motivated was seeing Nolan working right alongside them. Damon noted that the director never complained, even when conditions were at their worst. He explained that seeing the person with the hardest job on set, who was just as cold and wet as the actors, made the discomfort easier to manage.

“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.”

To prepare for the role of the legendary king of Ithaca, Damon had to undergo a significant physical transformation. He wanted to achieve the lean yet strong look that Nolan envisioned for the character. During a conversation on the New Heights podcast with Travis and Jason Kelce, Damon confirmed that he dropped down to 167 pounds for the role, which is the lightest he has been since he was in high school. He typically walks around between 185 and 200 pounds, so the change was quite drastic.

The secret to his transformation involved a strict diet and a major lifestyle shift. Damon revealed during an appearance on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast that he stopped eating gluten entirely. While he admits he misses bread, beer, pasta, and pizza, the change has been significant. He noted that the decision was life-changing and has completely transformed how he feels on a day-to-day basis.

“It’s just a complete, complete lifestyle change,” Damon said. “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.”