We talked with Matt Damon about his intense ‘The Odyssey’ experience and why Boston will always feel like home

Opening weekend marks the culmination of an intense journey for Matt Damon and the team behind “The Odyssey,” Christopher Nolan’s ambitious and highly-anticipated big-screen adaptation of Homer’s epic.

Read more Why ‘Modern Lovers ‘Live’’ remains an unpunk classic

Damon plays the legendary Odysseus, king of Ithaca, who embarks on a grueling, decade-long voyage home following the end of the Trojan War. The gods and monsters of Greek myths stand in his way, while his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) await his return in Ithaca, fending off suitors, including the scheming Antinous (Robert Pattinson), who plot to take the throne. In typical Nolan fashion, the director and writer assembled an all-star cast for the “The Odyssey,” which includes Zendaya as the goddess Athena, Lupita Nyong’o as both Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra, and John Leguizamo as Odysseus’s loyal friend and servant Eumaeus.

“I said to this crew at the end that I’ve never been more proud to be a part of a group of people,” Damon, 55, told the Globe in a phone interview, pointing out how unusual it is to film in IMAX with so many of the effects filmed live.“It just took so much coordination across so many departments and so many people, and like-minded people who really were in it for the right reasons.”

The sprawling, nearly three-hour film is the first movie filmed entirely in IMAX and hits theaters this weekend, though getting to this point was no easy feat.

Production for “The Odyssey” kicked off in February 2025, ultimately filming over 91 days spread acrosssix months in Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland, and the United States. From depicting the wrath of Poseidon on boats out on the high seas to sequences involving big battles and the famed Trojan horse, Nolan’s 13th feature film put its cast and crew through gantlet after gantlet in order to shoot on location, all while relying heavily on practical effects instead of computer-generated imagery.

“We’re really proud that we made it the way we did, and the movie looks as hard as it was to make,” Damon said. “You can really see it in every frame, and knowing what went into getting each of those shots and just what it took from this huge group of really committed people, I’m so happy that it’s getting the reception it is.”

“Movies are a lot of work, whether they work or not, but I’ve never been on a harder one than this,” he added. “I’m really happy that it cohered the way it did, and Chris is just such a special storyteller.”

Damon knew he needed to buff up and grow out a beard for the role, and quickly got to work after Nolan came to him with the opportunity in September 2024, jumping at the chance without even reading the script first.

“I started preparing when I hung up the phone, so I had about five months to get ready, and it was a lot,” admitted Damon. “[Nolan] was very specific about what he wanted the character to look like, and I went right back and read ’The Odyssey’ and then got his screenplay eventually.”

“He’s such a phenomenal writer and he’s so specific, and it was so clear the way he wanted to tell the story,” he added. “That really became the document that was my bible for the run of the show.”

Having previously worked with Nolan on 2014’s “Interstellar” and 2023’s “Oppenheimer,” Damon knew firsthand how dedicated the director is to every aspect of his films, making it a no-brainer to enlist for “The Odyssey.”

“I don’t know another director that sits in every wardrobe fitting with every actor from, like, the initial meeting all the way through the design,” Damon said. “He’s just incredibly meticulous, so that’s very reassuring.”

Read more World Cup integrity questioned by European rights body urging FIFA to help protect 2030 tournament

Having starred in hits including the Jason Bourne and “Ocean’s” movies, Damon is no stranger to working on projects that become pop culture phenomena. “Oppenheimer,” his previous film with Nolan, became a cultural behemoth amid the “Barbenheimer” craze of the summer of ‘23, and went on to pick up a slew of Oscars, including winning best picture.

While Damon notes that all the hype around “The Odyssey” “definitely feels different,” he doesn’t have a good explanation for why Nolan has such a penchant for tapping into the zeitgeist of modern audiences with his work.

“I think if you could quantify it, then everyone would be doing it,” said Damon. “He’s got a real talent for it.”

Damon admitted that he “felt much less sure about” the success of “Oppenheimer” before its release, noting how “it was a three-hour biopic” with “a lot of guys in rooms talking about physics.”

“I knew we were going to make a good movie because it was Chris … but nobody anticipated that it would do as well as it did,” said Damon. “But with ‘The Odyssey,’ this story’s been around for nearly 3,000 years, and there’s a reason for that, and there’s a reason that every generation keeps reading it and keeps talking about it, because it’s so universally human.”

After months of preparation, an intense film shoot, and a whirlwind press tour that has brought Damon everywhere from the “Saturday Night Live” stage opposite Noah Kahan to Amy Poehler’s podcast, the actor is entering the home stretch of his “Odyssey” experience. Although Damon has spent years now embodying and talking about a character whose sole goal is to get back to where he’s from, it hasn’t changed the meaning of home for him, with the focus, like Odysseus, always being on the people he loves.

“My home is my family and always has been and always will be, and that’s still the case,” said Damon.

And while it’s been a while since he’s lived in the Boston area, the Hub is still home too.

“It always will [be],” said Damon.

And nothing — not even getting “a lot of [expletive]” from locals over mispronouncing the word Quincy in his viral “Tonight Show” skit with Jimmy Fallon and Ben Affleck earlier this year where they named every town in Massachusetts — can break his bond with Boston.

“Ben and I talk about it all the time, and we love that we get to be identified as Bostonians by people all over the world,” said Damon. “We’re really proud of where we’re from, so we love that.”

“There’s only one place you can be from, wherever you end up,” the Cambridge native added. “It’s a huge part of our identity.”

Read more HBO’s ‘The Leftovers’ brought fear and wonder to a selective end-times event

“The Odyssey” is now in theaters.