Matt Damon underwent a six-month physical transformation to play Odysseus in Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," dropping to 167 pounds on a gluten-free diet and growing out his beard for a full year ahead of filming.
The 55-year-old actor detailed the process during a recent appearance on "Live with Kelly and Mark," saying the preparation "just kind of took over my life." Nolan told Damon he wanted Odysseus to look "lean and strong like somebody who's a veteran of the Trojan War," and Damon said hitting that specific build was some of the hardest physical work of his career.
Speaking earlier this year on the Kelce brothers' podcast "New Heights," Damon said he brought his weight down to what he described as his "high school" weight, dropping from his usual 185-to-200-pound range. He also acknowledged the process wasn't without cost, revealing he experienced dizzy spells and hot flashes during filming that initially worried him enough to keep them to himself.
"The Odyssey," Nolan's adaptation of Homer's epic poem, follows Odysseus's decade-long journey home after the Trojan War - a story built around shipwrecks, monsters, imprisonment, and sustained physical hardship. The film also stars Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, and Charlize Theron, and opened to a roughly $264 million global debut, the biggest of Nolan's career.
There's something fitting in the discipline Damon brought to portraying a man defined by endurance - a reminder that, as Scripture puts it, perseverance through hardship is what shapes character worth having (James 1:2-4), whether the journey is fictional or real.
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