Matt Damon reveals key food ingredient he cut to shed weight for The Odyssey

Matt Damon has shared the secret to his incredible weight loss journey for his new role in Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming historical epic The Odyssey.

Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic Greek poem stars Damon, 55, as hero Odysseus, alongside Tom Holland as Telemachus, Robert Pattinson as Antinous and Zendaya as Athena. It also features Anne Hathaway, Elliot Page, Lupita Nyong’o and Charlize Theron.

For his lead role, Damon said Nolan “wanted me to be lean but strong.”

“I was in great shape. I lost a lot of weight,” the Good Will Hunting actor told NFL player brothers Jason and Travis Kelce on their New Heights podcast.

Before filming, he said he “used to walk around at between 185 and 200.” But after working with his doctor to cut gluten from his diet — the key to his physical transformation — he managed to drop nearly 20 pounds.

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“I did that whole movie at 167,” he said. “And I haven’t been that light since high school. So it was a lot of training and a really strict diet.”

The Odyssey, expected to release in theaters July 17, will be Damon’s third collaboration with Nolan. They previously worked together on Interstellar (2014) and Oppenheimer (2023), the director’s most recent film, which dominated the 2024 awards season, winning seven Oscars, seven Baftas, five Golden Globes and numerous other high-profile awards.

In a previous interview with Empire about working on The Odyssey, Damon called it “the best experience” of his career, and praised the film as “massively entertaining.”

“If you’re going to have an existential crisis as you pass the Sirens and you’re lashed to a mast, it’s there. If it says you’re running for your life from a Cyclops, you’re going to run for your life,” he said about Odysseus’s epic journey in the film. “Chris doesn’t hide the ball.”

Last year, Universal Pictures received heat from fans over its first look at Damon in character as Odysseus. In the picture, Damon is shown wearing a cape, wrist armor, and a traditional Spartan helmet topped with a red plume.

It was the latter detail that generated controversy among social media users, who pointed out that it differs from what is described in the original text.

“The Iliad literally describes Odysseus wearing a kino leather helmet adorned with boar tusks, but Hollywood can never resist the siren song of the generic ancient broom helmet. This helmet is like cocaine to costume designers,” one X user wrote.