Matt Damon’s ‘The Odyssey’ Weight Loss Transformation
- Matt Damon recently appeared on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast and discussed his dramatic weight loss for his role in Christopher Nolan's upcoming film,"Oppenheimer."
- Damon plays General Leslie Groves in the film, and to achieve the look of the 1940s, he had to lose a meaningful amount of weight.
- "Chris [Nolan] wanted me to be thinner than I was for 'The Martian,'" Damon explained.
Matt Damon On ‘The Odyssey’ Weight Loss Transformation
Matt Damon recently appeared on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast and discussed his dramatic weight loss for his role in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film,”Oppenheimer.”
Damon plays General Leslie Groves in the film, and to achieve the look of the 1940s, he had to lose a meaningful amount of weight. He described the process as “a really difficult diet.”
“Chris [Nolan] wanted me to be thinner than I was for ‘The Martian,'” Damon explained. “And I had to really work at it. It was a really difficult diet. I just had to eat a lot of steamed vegetables and grilled chicken.”
He also revealed that he had to cut out all alcohol and sugar from his diet. “It was tough,” he admitted. “But I knew I had to do it for the role.”
Damon’s transformation has been garnering attention online, with many people commenting on his noticeably slimmer physique.
“Oppenheimer” is set to release on July 21, 2023. The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who helped develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II.
![Actor before and after weight change; left image shows him clean-shaven, right has a beard. Bold caption on left says, "I did that whole movie at [censored] pounds..."](https://i0.wp.com/img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2026-01/08/14/thumb/EgUgMSItR.jpg?ssl=1 "Matt Damon's 'The Odyssey' Weight Loss Transformation")
Okay, so remember those photos of Matt Damon that broke the internet last week? The ones where he looked… different? Well, he’s now explained why he looked different, and it involves a seriously intense weight loss journey for his upcoming role in the movie “The Odyssey.”
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Damon revealed he got down to 135 pounds for the role, which is what he weighed in high school. “I did that whole movie at [censored] pounds,” he said, adding that he’d been “really lean” before, but never this lean.
“I’m not a nutritionist or a doctor, but I just did what the doctor told me to do,” Damon explained. “I was trying to get down to what I weighed in high school.”
The role requires him to play Odysseus as a young man, and apparently, the filmmakers wanted to visually represent that youthfulness through his physique. Damon said he worked with a nutritionist and a trainer to safely lose the weight, and that he was “very careful” about it.
Honestly, the dedication is… a lot. And I’m suddenly very aware of all the snacks I have within reach.