Matt Damon a major happened weight loss transformation before filming The Odyssey.
“I was in really good shape. I lost a lot of weight,” Damon, 55, said on the Wednesday, Jan. 7, episode of New Heights. podcastpointing to the director Christopher Nolan he wanted him to look “thin but strong” to portray the iconic hero Odysseus. “I literally stopped eating…gluten.”
According to Damon, he “used to walk around 185 to 200” pounds, but was down to 167 during The Odyssey
“I haven’t been this light since high school. It was a lot of training and a very strict diet,” said the Oscar winner. “I have (a coach, but they’re) like, ‘What are we doing?’ They can do anything. It’s just having a clear goal and setting it.”
Damon considers his training to be “part of (his) day” and part of the job.
“You get very routine about it and build your day around it All those things,” he said. “That’s kind of the physical part of getting ready.”
In addition to spending time in the gym, Damon also adopted a gluten-free nutritional plan.
“I’m gluten-free everything. I found a gluten-free beer,” he said. “I’ve been gluten-free for so long, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, so that’s a good sign.”
The Odyssey is an adaptation of Homer’s poem of the same name about Odysseus’ 10-year journey home after the Trojan War. The film also stars Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Mia Goth and more
“I’m a (Christopher Nolan) fan. I love the movies he makes and the way he insists on making them,” Damon said of the film production. “That was 100 percent in IMAX. It was the first movie that was done entirely in IMAX, like IMAX cameras are really noisy. It sounds like a blender (or) a Cuisinart in your face.”
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Due to the noisy camera, the actors were unable to film dialogue scenes as usual.
“They built this giant thing around the IMAX for these dialogue scenes and a mirror system so that your eye line was close to the camera and you could talk to the other actor,” Damon said. “The amount of work that went into figuring out how to do it because he wanted to make it 100 percent IMAX, and he did. It’s, like, a very ambitious idea that he has from the technical side.”
Damon continued, “So there were places where we’d go … where we’d get there and I’d just start laughing. I’d be like, ‘No one has any business shooting here, but of course they want to shoot here.’
Damon also praised Nolan’s “great crew” for pulling together the ambitious epic.
“His crew is so bad and everyone is done with this movie and we did all our days. We actually finished ahead of schedule,” he said. “It was an amazing experience, (but) it was just an amazing experience. I haven’t seen it yet.”