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Why is Matt Damon perfect for The Odyssey? Because of his Martian role
Christopher Nolan says that Odysseus is a bit of an everyman, which is why he cast Matt Damon as the lead in The Odyssey.
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You could point to any number of Matt Damon’s remarkable performances as the reason why Christopher Nolan cast him as the lead in The Odyssey. There is a little bit of Odysseus in nearly every character that has ever appeared on stage or screen, but it was a mixture of Damon’s performances in The Martian and the Jason Bourne films that convinced Nolan that he was the right lead for his latest epic.
During a recent interview, Christopher Nolan discussed some of the big performances fans can expect to see in The Odyssey. Two seemed particularly worthy of praise by the director: Samantha Morton, who plays Circe, and Matt Damon, who plays tortured hero Odysseus.
“I’d worked with Matt twice before and he has such a great connection to the audience,” Christopher Nolan explained. “He draws them in. For this very complex character, you need an actor who disappears into parts, who is very open to the audience. You want the audience to go with him through his mistakes – and he makes a lot of mistakes.”
Nolan then cited two roles that Matt Damon has played that proved he could embody Odysseus. “Matt was everyman for The Martian, a kind of superhero for the Jason Bourne films, and Odysseus is part everyman, part superhero.”
Damon also helped keep the rest of the cast motivated through the long shoots. “We were going to really challenging locations, doing a lot of boat work, and he helped lead that process. The rest of the cast, a cadre of guys who worked their asses off rowing, was looking to him, and everyone saw what he was doing for the film. Without Matt, we would have been better off doing it on a sound stage.”
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