The Oscar-winning director wasn’t thrilled to learn that his lead star would need hours of makeup to cover up his tattoos.

Matt Damon thought his ‘bare bicep days were over’ before getting cast in* The Odyssey*, Christopher Nolan says

The Oscar-winning director wasn’t thrilled to learn that his lead star would need hours of makeup to cover up his tattoos.

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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July 7, 2026 4:25 p.m. ET

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Matt Damon as Odysseus in ‘The Odyssey’. Credit:

Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

- Christopher Nolan revealed he wasn’t thrilled to learn about Matt Damon’s tattoos after choosing him to play Odysseus.

- But in Damon’s defense, the 55-year-old actor didn’t expect he’d still be showing off his arms on camera.

- “If I’m to be perfectly honest, I thought my bare bicep days were over,’” *The Odyssey *director recalls him saying.

Christopher Nolan was dealing with a lot of moving pieces while putting together *The Odyssey*.

The sprawling cast, globe-trotting shoots, grand nature of the classic story, and evolving technology presented more than enough to worry about. And then there was the matter of Matt Damon’s tattoos.

“I had a moment with him at his first wardrobe fitting because we’d be fitting all of the supporting cast — all the guys who play his crew and some younger actors and everything — and they all come in and they’ve all got tattoos,” Nolan recounted during a recent visit to Amy Poehler’s *Good Hang* podcast. “Which is a nightmare for a period film. It means hours of make-up. You have to cover all that up and then put the costume on — and then rain and wind and the costume will rub it away.”

But Nolan figured that with Damon, the 55-year-old star of his film, he would catch a break. Little did he know…

“He takes his shirt off at the fitting, and he’s got a f---ing tattoo,” Nolan complained. “And I was like, ‘Not you as well.’ Like, what?”

Matt Damon and Christopher Nolan attend an ‘Oppenheimer’ special screening in 2024.

Noam Galai/Getty

The tat in question was, in Nolan’s words, “tasteful.” In cursive, Damon has inked the names of his four children — daughters  Alexia, 27, Isabella, 20, Gia, 17, and Stella, 15 — along with the name “Lucy,” a dedication to his wife Luciana.

Aside from the touching explanation behind the tattoo, Nolan noted that Damon had a pretty solid defense for his ink.

“He said to me, ‘Well, if I’m to be perfectly honest, I thought my bare bicep days were over,’” the director recalled with a chuckle. “And I said, ‘Okay. Fair enough. The truth is, I think they’re just beginning.’”

Needless to say, Damon ended up spending “a little extra time in the chair” throughout the months-long shoot.

Matt Damon as Odysseus in ‘The Odyssey’.

Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

For Damon’s part, the actor has made it clear that covering up his tattoos was the least of his worries when it came to preparing for* The Odyssey*. The actor told Poehler that his role in the film required a “complete lifestyle change,” from developing a workout regimen to totally changing his diet.

“There’s no planning it,” Damon said. “Any other time I tried to do something like that, it was always like, timing my workouts and things… And this was like, no. No. Just everything. Just put your foot on the gas, and that’s it. And that’s the only way to do it.”

In the end, it was all worth it: tattoos aside, Nolan has said that Damon was the clear choice to play Odysseus in his retelling of Homer’s Greek epic.

'The Odyssey' cast: Meet the star-studded ensemble of Christopher Nolan's journey to ancient Greece

Only 1 actor asked to read Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' script before saying yes

“He’s in exactly the right place in his time of life,” Nolan said.

When Poehler asked how he landed on Damon as his lead, he replied, “I actually don’t think about actors when I’m writing. I try not to. I try to really just live through the characters in the writing process, then come out the other side and go, ‘How is this gonna work? Who are we getting for this?’ And Matt immediately popped into my head.”

The *Oppenheimer* filmmaker explained that what he needed for Odysseus was someone with the “empathetic ability to draw the audience into a character’s dilemma,” something that Damon had proven in several past performances.

“He has that openness. He brings the audience with him,” Nolan continued. “But he also can project an iconic, frankly, superhero presence. He’s, you know, he’s the guy from* The Martian* or* We Bought a Zoo* and *Good Will Hunting*— and then he’s Jason Bourne. And to be able to do such disparate things and sort of fuse them into a character was exactly what I needed.”

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While still more than a week away from debuting in theaters, *T**he Odyssey* has received rave reviews from critics who praise the film as a “jaw-dropping,” “must-see” epic. Meanwhile, IMAX screenings of the film started selling out select theaters a calendar year before its release.

Watch Damon reflect on the massive project in the podcast above.

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Source: “EW Drama”