By the time Matt Damon stepped into the sandals of Odysseus, he wasn’t just returning to ancient myth, he was also returning to his teenage weight.
The 55-year-old Oscar winner revealed that he dropped more than 30 pounds to play the legendary Greek hero in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic 'The Odyssey,' slimming down to 167 pounds, a number he hadn’t seen since high school.
© GettyThe transformation, Damon says, came down to disciplined training, a tightly controlled routine, and one major dietary shift, cutting gluten entirely.
“I was in really good shape. I lost a lot of weight,” Damon said during an appearance on Travis and Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast on Wednesday, Jan. 7. “He said he wanted me like lean but strong. It's a weird thing.”
© Backgrid UK/The Grosby GroupDamon reunited with Nolan after previous collaborations on 'Interstellar' and Oppenheimer, and this time, the director had a very specific physical vision for Odysseus. To meet it, Damon worked closely with his doctor and trainer, and made a decisive change.
“I literally, just because of this other thing I did with my doctor, stopped eating gluten,” Damon explained. “I used to walk around between 185 and 200 pounds. I did that whole movie at 167.”
© Backgrid UK/The Grosby Group“I haven’t been that light since high school,” he added. “So it was a lot of training and a really strict diet.” Production on 'The Odyssey' has since wrapped, but Damon says the diet stuck.
“I’m done. I’m gluten-free everything,” he said, laughing. “I found a gluten-free beer. It’s been so long since I’ve had gluten, I can’t tell if it’s good or not, so that’s a good sign.” Jason Kelce quickly chimed in, “It’s working. It’s working.”
© Backgrid/The Grosby GroupBeyond diet, Damon emphasized consistency as the backbone of his transformation. Comparing his preparation to an NFL season, he described the physical work as a daily rhythm rather than a temporary grind.
“You know, it’s like just part of your day. It’s part of your job, right?” Damon said. “It’s like yeah, you get really routinized about it and really kind of build your day around all that stuff.”
Having a trusted trainer also played a key role. “Trainers are like, ‘What are we doing?’ And they can kind of do anything,” Damon said. “It's just having kind of a clear goal and setting it.”
© Barry KingHis current approach stands in sharp contrast to one of the most dangerous transformations of his career. For the 1996 war drama 'Courage Under Fire,' the actor lost between 40 and 50 pounds in about 100 days, a decision he later admitted nearly cost him his health.
“I went too far,” Damon told the U.K. outlet Express. “I got sick, and I wouldn’t do that again because it was just too much.” “The doctor told me later I could have shrunk my heart permanently,” he said, recalling how he dropped to 135 pounds at 5-foot-11. “I had to be thin and went on an unsupervised diet, which could have killed me.”
He later described surviving on little more than chicken breast while running up to 13 miles a day, an experience he now calls a cautionary tale rather than a blueprint.
© Splash News/The Grosby Group'The Odyssey' adapted from Homer’s ancient Greek epic, is slated to hit theaters on July 17. Universal Pictures has described the film as “a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX® film technology.”
Alongside Damon as Odysseus, the star-studded cast includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Elliot Page, Mia Goth, John Leguizamo and Benny Safdie.
