Matt Damon Calls THE ODYSSEY the "Pinnacle" of His Career After 30 Years in Hollywood
After more than three decades of acting in Hollywood, Matt Damon says he’s finally reached a personal high point. That moment came while making The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s massive big screen adaptation of Homer’s legendary epic.
According to Damon, the experience was the most demanding and rewarding project of his entire career. He recently appeared alongside Ben Affleck on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon while promoting their upcoming Netflix film The Rip.
During the conversation, Damon opened up about what it meant to lead Nolan’s long-awaited take on The Odyssey, describing the opportunity as something truly rare for an actor at this stage of his career.
“It was absolutely the pinnacle of my entire career.”
Affleck managed to visit the set during production, which Damon joked made him the only guest allowed during six months of filming. That wasn’t an exaggeration. According to Damon, the scope of the production left zero room for distractions, with the cast and crew fully locked in from start to finish.
“It was such an ambitious project that the amount of work that needed to be done, there was just no time for anything else. I’ve never, ever done a movie that just required every single person to work to kind of give the maximum effort.
“I said to him [Affleck] that every location on that movie would have been the hardest location on any other movie I’ve ever done, and any day of work would have been harder than any other day on any other movie I’ve ever done.”
In The Odyssey, Damon takes on the role of Odysseus, the clever and battle-hardened king of Ithaca who spends years trying to make his way home after the Trojan War.
Along the journey, Odysseus faces brutal challenges and unforgettable encounters, including a run-in with a Cyclops, all of which Nolan is bringing to life on a massive cinematic scale.
The film features an impressive ensemble that includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Mia Goth, and Charlize Theron.
Nolan wrote and directed The Odyssey, producing alongside Emma Thomas. The film marks his follow-up to the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, raising expectations even higher for what he’ll deliver next.
The film is currently scheduled to hit theaters on July 17, 2026, and if Damon’s words are any indication, it’s going to be something incredible.