Matt Damon leads The Odyssey‘s impressive cast as Odysseus, and the actor now reveals that Christopher Nolan had a non-negotiable demand regarding the actor’s appearance.
Speaking to Empire, Damon reveals that Nolan was adamant that he sport a real beard to play Odysseus. “He wants it all real,” the actor says of Nolan. Damon recalls being a little apprehensive about his ability to grow facial hair that would be a good fit, though:
“I’d never tried to grow a beard that size. I mean, there are about 100 things to take a beard off my face before it can get that long, starting with my kids.”
Damon initially suggested that he wear a fake beard for the role, but Nolan was quick to veto that. According to the director, there’s no substitute for real hair when it comes to his practical approach to filmmaking. Nolan explains:
“I’m not a big fan of wigs and fake beards. You want the physicality of real hair, so that you can put a firehose on the guy and do all the things we need him to do.”
Nolan demanding that his actors be free from wigs and fake beards tracks with his general approach to making movies. It’s no secret that the filmmaker is passionate about practical effects and capturing things in camera. He famously crashed a real Boeing 747 into a building for Tenet (2020) instead of using CGI.
Plus, The Odyssey was shot entirely on IMAX, a first for Nolan and for movies in general. It’s possible that wigs and fake beards would stand out more in the larger-format image IMAX creates.
Damon’s beard for the film was first officially revealed in the debut image from Nolan’s The Odyssey, but it was largely covered up by a helmet. It was in the many leaked set images that followed that his look was more fully unveiled.
Though a teaser trailer for The Odyssey played in theaters this summer, teasing Odysseus’ years-long journey home after the Trojan War, one has not yet been released publicly on YouTube. Official footage of Damon in character, then, is still hard to come by, but Empire did recently release new images from the movie, which are included above.
With Nolan’s next film set to hit theaters in July 2026, a full-length trailer will probably be released in the near future. Avatar: Fire and Ash marks the year’s last big release, and it would make sense for more footage from The Odyssey to be screened ahead of the James Cameron sci-fi epic. This time, it might also make its way online instead of being theater-exclusive.
Damon is joined in The Odyssey’s cast by Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Elliot Page, and Lupita Nyong’o, among others. While many questions remain about exactly how Nolan will be adapting The Odyssey, it’s clear that audiences can expect only real hair from the actors involved.
- Release Date
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July 17, 2026
- Producers
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Emma Thomas