Matt Damon Slams Oscar Campaigning and Says THE ODYSSEY Felt Like the "Last Big Movie on Film That I'm Ever Going to Make"
Matt Damon sat down with Netflix’s “Skip Intro” podcast during his press tour for the streamer’s recently released crime thriller The Rip, which happens to have come out right in the midst of Oscar season.
Damon is no stranger to awards campaigning, with three acting Academy Award nominations under his belt and a screenplay win for Good Will Hunting. He also hit the trail hard as a cast member in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which won best picture in 2024.
But as it turns out, Damon would be happy to just make movies and slip back into his normal life, even if it meant losing out on awards. When Damon was asked what his least favorite part of the Hollywood process was, he quickly responded, “Awards season. 100%.”
He went on, “What I don’t like is this idea of campaigning. It seems completely backwards to me and odd. Maybe it’s good for movies, just having it all out there and gets the culture thinking and talking about movies. I hope that’s the case…”
Unfortunately for Damon, he is likely to be campaigning once again as the star of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.” The actor told Smith that he is “still kind of unpacking” the experience of making Nolan’s Greek epic, but noted: “It did have a profound effect on me. Doing The Odyssey this last year, it felt like my one chance in my life to make a David Lean movie, you know? That I was making the last big movie on film that I was ever going to get to make.”
Damon had previously said of the film: “If I look objectively at what was required to do that job, I think it came at just the right time in my life. I think I would have been miserable 20 years ago, trying to do that job. You were uncomfortable every day. But I really enjoyed, like, deeply enjoyed every minute of it,”
“Intellectually, I understood that concept of you’re not in control of what happens, but you are in control of how you feel about it — it’s easier said than done,” he continued. “But to really feel gratitude — and I think because it was tied into not only the joy of being able to have a role that great with a director that great with a group of people that great and a story that great, but in that sense of nostalgia I had for how I started, how I came into the business, the feeling I had when I was shooting School Ties and Freddie Francis was the cinematographer and I, you know, and I was like, ‘This is really happening.’”
I think press junkets, interviews, and award campaigning are just the unfortunate downside to having the job of a very successful actor. While it sounds exhausting, I bet he wouldn’t trade it, and if he would, I know quite a few people who’d be happy to switch spots.
The Odyssey is set to be released in theatres on July 17, 2026.
via: Variety