Matt Damon reveals what he’ll NEVER do to his body again

Matt Damon went from 200lbs to 167lbs in order to transform into the legendary Greek king of Ithaca Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s $250 million-budget adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey.

‘It was more about just getting really, really physically fit, which just really involves changing your diet, just a whole lifestyle change,’ the 55-year-old Oscar-winning screenwriter said in his People cover story.

‘You have to just be very, very intentional about everything you’re putting in your body.’

Damon – who relies on fitness trainer Jason Walsh – gave up gluten ‘among other things’ but he made sure to do it all safely.

‘I didn’t change it in an unhealthy way,’ The Rip producer-star noted.

‘I think if I had done the opposite and put weight on, that would have been dangerous and it’s not something I’ll do anymore. I was happy to do it earlier in my life.’

Matt Damon went from 200lbs to 167lbs in order to transform into the legendary Greek king of Ithaca Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s $250 million-budget adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey

‘It was more about just getting really, really physically fit, which just really involves changing your diet, just a whole lifestyle change,’ the 55-year-old Oscar-winning screenwriter told People. ‘You have to just be very, very intentional about everything you’re putting in your body’ (pictured Tuesday)

Indeed, Damon ‘easily’ packed on 30lbs on his 5ft 10in frame in 2008 in order to more authentically portray real-life executive-turned-whistleblower Mark Whitacre in Steven Soderbergh’s black comedy The Informant!

But when his Oppenheimer castmate Josh Hartnett gained the same amount of weight to play nuclear physicist Ernest Lawrence, the Cambridge-born actor warned him, ‘You’re never gonna get that off again, man.’

‘He’s like, “You’re gonna spend the rest of your life trying to get that weight off, and it’s never gonna come off because your body’s gonna want to get that weight back on,”‘ the 47-year-old heartthrob recalled on The Tonight Show in 2024.

Matt Damon brings wife and daughter to The Odyssey premiere in NYC

‘You’re just gonna keep growing back out to that size, and you’re going to try and get it off, but it’s just gonna go back.” And he kept telling me, like, over the course of the production. I was like, “Thanks, Matt. Thanks for telling me this now. I’ve already gained it.”‘

Damon also went to the other extreme – whittling down to 139lbs – to get into character as drug-addicted US Army specialist Andrew Ilario in Edward Zwick’s 1996 drama Courage Under Fire.

But the the two-time Golden Globe winner said The Odyssey was ‘the most challenging movie I’ve ever been a part of’ and it marked his third time being directed by Nolan after Oppenheimer and his 2014 sci-fi epic Interstellar.

The ensemble cast includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, Mia Goth, Elliot Page, Samantha Morton, James Remar and Travis Scott.

The Odyssey hits US/UK theaters this Thursday.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Damon’s rep for comment, but did not immediately hear back. 

Damon – who relies on fitness trainer Jason Walsh – gave up gluten ‘among other things’ but he made sure to do it all safely: ‘I didn’t change it in an unhealthy way’

The Rip producer-star noted: ‘I think if I had done the opposite and put weight on, that would have been dangerous and it’s not something I’ll do anymore. I was happy to do it earlier in my life’

Indeed, Damon ‘easily’ packed on 30lbs on his 5ft 10in frame in 2008 in order to more authentically portray real-life executive-turned-whistleblower Mark Whitacre in Steven Soderbergh’s black comedy The Informant!

But when his Oppenheimer castmate Josh Hartnett gained the same amount of weight to play nuclear physicist Ernest Lawrence, the Cambridge-born actor warned him, ‘You’re never gonna get that off again, man’

‘He’s like, “You’re gonna spend the rest of your life trying to get that weight off, and it’s never gonna come off because your body’s gonna want to get that weight back on,”‘ the 47-year-old heartthrob recalled on The Tonight Show in 2024

Damon also went to the other extreme – whittling down to 139lbs – to get into character as drug-addicted US Army specialist Andrew Ilario in Edward Zwick’s 1996 drama Courage Under Fire

But the two-time Golden Globe winner said The Odyssey – hitting US/UK theaters this Thursday – was ‘the most challenging movie I’ve ever been a part of’

On August 20, the Artists Equity co-founder and his wife of 20 years, Luciana Bozán Barroso Damon, will celebrate the 18th birthday of their daughter Gia. 

The married couple are also proud parents of three daughters – Bella, 20, and Stella, 15 – and Damon is stepfather to Barroso’s 27-year-old daughter Alexia from her first marriage to Arbello Barroso, which ended in 2004.

The Argentinian 50-year-old was still technically married when she met Damon in 2003 while bartending at a nightclub in South Beach Miami where he’d been filming the Farrelly Brothers’ conjoined twin comedy Stuck On You.

Luciana and the Actor Awards winner have a strict rule in their marriage to never go more than two weeks apart from each other.

The inseparable couple will next co-produce his BFF-business partner Ben Affleck’s upcoming sixth directorial effort Animals featuring Gillian Anderson, Steven Yeun and Kerry Washington.