Matt Damon is renowned for his dedication to his craft, often undergoing significant physical transformations to fully embody his characters. From losing drastic amounts of weight to building considerable muscle mass, Damon's commitment to his roles is evident in his impressive range and versatility. This article explores some of the most notable instances of Matt Damon's weight loss and physical training for movies, showcasing his unwavering dedication to the art of acting.
Early Roles and Physical Transformations
In one of his first significant roles, Matt Damon played a rich, anti-Semitic bigot in the beloved "School Ties." Portraying an elite New England prep school student may not have been a physical stretch for the young, Boston-bred Damon, though the role of entitled Charlie Dillon required him to tap into a background and upbringing different than his own.
Courage Under Fire: A Drastic Transformation
One of Damon's most striking transformations came with his role as Specialist Ilario in "Courage Under Fire." In a reverse DeNiro, Damon famously shed 40 pounds through strict diet and exercise to show the anguish of his character Specialist Ilario, a soldier traumatized by the effects of war, now addicted to heroin. Damon had to wait a year for this performance to bear fruit, but he had to be thrilled when the director who took note of his physical sacrifice was Francis Ford Coppola.
"I weighed 139 pounds in that movie, and that is not a natural weight for me and not a happy weight for me even when I was 25. I had to run about 13 miles a day which wasn't even the hard part. The hard part was the diet, all I ate was chicken breast. It's not like I had a chef or anything, I just made it up and did what I thought I had to do. While this role took a toll on Damon's health - he had to take medication for a year and a half afterward to correct the stress put on his adrenal gland - he considered it a great career move, as it allowed for him to show his commitment to acting.
Good Will Hunting: A More Familiar Role
When you think of Good Will Hunting, it's easy to first think of Matt Damon winning the Best Original Screenplay Oscar with his best friend and co-star Ben Affleck. But his role as Will Hunting, a genius who chooses to work as an M.I.T. janitor while hanging around with his friends from South Boston, is impossible to overlook. The role, which earned Damon a Best Actor Oscars nod, may have been less Method than some of his previous. He was working on a script he wrote, playing up a more familiar Southie accent, and working with childhood pals. From that point forward, Chris O'Donnell was getting the scripts he passed on.
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The Talented Mr. Ripley: Becoming a Blank Slate
When playing Tom Ripley, a human chameleon highly skilled at impersonating others, Matt Damon had to become as close to a forgettable blank slate as possible. For an actor who's proven his ability to totally transform for a role, playing a sociopath with the ability to quickly and fully adapt to a new persona was some form of meta-Method acting. The impish floppy hair and nerdy glasses were the most noticeable parts of Tom Ripley's slight, pale frame (Damon's body had to be covered in makeup head to toe in order to appear pasty for this role), which proved to be an excellent means of assuming another identity.
All the Pretty Horses: Embracing the Cowboy Life
In 2000, Matt Damon played John Grady Cole in All the Pretty Horses, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name. The movie wasn't very well received, and Damon later went on to better portrayals of cowboys, but it was an opportunity for Damon to morph into a real period role. The horseback riding and Texas accent were new to Damon, and Thornton famously eschewed on-set rehearsals, favoring a more natural one-take approach.
The Good Shepherd: A Quiet Transformation
Though The Good Shepherd was a movie about the Central Intelligence Agency, it steered away from being a fast-paced spy thriller. Damon played spy-catcher Edward Wilson in a role which was highly mysterious without being reduced to basic spy movie clichés. "[Matt Damon's] implosive quiet evokes Al Pacino in The Godfather II," Peter Travers wrote of the role, skillfully directed by another famed Method actor, Robert De Niro.
Invictus: Becoming a Rugby Champion
To convincingly play the role of François Pienaar, captain of the Springboks, South Africa's rugby team, Damon had to look the part of a champion athlete. The actor was committed to Pienaar's account of the 1995 World Cup, which was held in South Africa and helped to unite the country following the dismantling of apartheid. In addition to learning a South African accent, Matt Damon learned how to play rugby on top of his heavy training for the role. Portraying Pienaar earned Damon an Academy Award nomination and helped show his chameleonic versatility.
30 Rock: A Lighthearted Role
It's no surprise that Damon was at the top of Tina Fey's 30 Rock guest star wish list, and it's also not a surprise that he was equally excited by the prospect of appearing on the hit show. For an actor who has both literally and figuratively flexed his dramatic muscles, appearing on 30 Rock as Liz Lemon's love interest - the pilot Carol Burnett - was a fun project.
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Behind the Candelabra: Liberace's Lover
When playing Liberace's lover Scott Thorson in this summer's Behind the Candelabra, Damon had to be Speedo-ready. The role of Thorson required the actor to tap into his inner chameleon, morphing from cornfed farm boy to a spray-tanned, plastic surgery-riddled pill addict. We all knew Damon could do All-American, but seeing him embrace the role of Liberace's kept lover was a brave and successful role for the dramatic actor. Damon gamely wore rhinestone Speedos and prosthetics that turned his face into a shell of what he once was.
Elysium: Building Raw Muscle
Damon plays ripped factory slave Max De Costa in this summer's Elysium. He approached his role in the dystopian sci-fi thriller by building more raw muscle, transforming his Behind the Candelabra frame to be ready to fight an army of droids. He also shaved his head and covered his body in tattoos that seem like they've always been there. Director Neill Blomkamp was so specific about how he wanted Matt Damon's body to look that he found a picture of a man with rock-hard abs, taped Damon's face to it and sent him to a trainer for four-hour-a-day workouts, as Damon explained to Variety.
The Jason Bourne Franchise: Functional Fitness
While Damon's exact training for the role isn't clear, he spent a lot of time getting into shape earlier in his career for specific role, most notably for the Jason Bourne franchise. Rather than lifting heavy weights - Damon has completely avoided barbell back squats and deadlifts - the Hollywood actor has focused throughout his time training on more functional, bodyweight movements with his trainer Jason Walsh. A long-standing shoulder problem and a back injury meant Walsh needed to develop strength in Damon while preventing injury and promoting mobility.
'It’s about understanding the basics,' Walsh said in 2016. 'People always want to add more weight. We don’t even touch a weight, it’s all calisthenics work. It’s about connecting to the body again and then maybe putting weight on, or starting to hold moves for longer periods of time.' Weighted pull-ups, push-ups, weighted single-leg squats, bear crawls and planks comprised the majority of his workouts a decade ago as a result, with long-distance runs and sprints on the VersaClimber machine helping with his conditioning.
'He loves challenges,' Walsh added. 'We got to the point where we were doing 100 pull-ups two or three times a week. We’d see how many sets it takes to get 100. Once you lose some of that excess weight, pull-ups get a lot easier. He was doing 30-some pull-ups per set.'
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Matt Damon with his trainer, Jason Walsh. “My biggest worry was him breaking,” he said. At 45, Damon did 100 sit-ups, 300 push-ups, 50 squats and 50 squat jumps daily.
Becoming Odysseus: The Latest Transformation
Becoming Odysseus has seen Matt Damon undergo another physical transformation. The 54-year-old is starring as the Greek king of Ithaca in the upcoming Christopher Nolan film The Odyssey, which will release in July 2026, and has been pictured looking ripped for the upcoming film. Standing on a rocky shoreline in Italy with a long grey beard and wearing just a ragged brown cloth wrapped around his waist, Damon's shoulders and abs were popping as debris stuck to his body. He's put in extensive effort to get into such impressive shape, too, with long-time friend Ben Affleck jokingly commenting on the image in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
'Look at my man trying to act like he didn’t know they were taking this picture - nobody's fooled. You went out there and flexed. Somebody told him the paparazzi were out there,' Affleck said. 'No, I have to respect it. It’s a lot of hard work, and it doesn’t get any easier when you have the very long grey beard. That's one of the things I respect about Matt is that he just works very hard, and you can see that if it requires a certain physique for the role where he's got to be a warrior, he'll get it done. Very impressive.'
Indeed, the 54-year-old-who is set to play Odysseus in the Greek myth film-was channeling his inner Poseidon by sporting washboard abs, as well as a very godly beard, which he first debuted in early March at SXSW festival.
But the Good Will Hunting actor-who shares daughters Alexia, 25, Isabella, 18, Gia, 16 and Stella, 14 with wife Luciana Damon-has lamented the experience of doing stunts himself before. After all, he has previously advised against pursuing the training it takes for him to get in shape for action-driven roles like Jason Bourne.
BACKGRID“Unless it's your job, three hours a day in the gym, or two hours and then a long run later… or a long hike with a weight vest on… it just sucks,” Matt told Total Film in 2017. “And then it's the diet where you're not really eating anything you want to eat. You're not having that glass of wine at the end of the day…
Damon's Dedication to Stunts
As well as working hard in the gym to achieve such impressive results, Damon has also spent a lot of time refining his stunts with stunt performer James Newman. In a now-deleted episode of the Action for Everyone podcast, reported by Screen Rant, Newman highlighted how dedicated to the scenes Damon was.
'I had the opportunity to make some action with a talented group of people for the film and also had the opportunity to make some action with a talented group for the film,' Newman said. 'Matt definitely wanted to be more efficient because that's the character. Odysseus is really the only war scene character along that journey. The guys he has with him have fought with him but Odysseus himself is like, "I’ve lived and breathed battle," and so that makes him more smart, and that’s why he’s so good. Matt definitely understood that and then we were trying to play that up as well. So he isn’t going to do flashy things.'
Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus: A Comparison
It’s an epic battle worthy of Homer. Ralph Fiennes and Matt Damon both got ripped to play Odysseus in different films.
“There is no gym in ancient Greece,” Pasolini told The Independent last month. “At that age, injury prevention is everything,” Avasilcai told the UK’s The Times. “You can’t train a 60-year-old like you would a 20-year-old. Their muscles, bones and joints are different. I kept Ralph’s workouts strict and safe. Fiennes’ gritty portrayal in Uberto Pasolini’s “The Return” debuted in December.
“Occasionally, I would surprise Ralph with our favourite Italian gelato,” Avasilcai said. Other days, Fiennes would have to abstain from water the night before and the day of shooting to attain that frayed appearance - which Avasilcai emphasizes is not recommended.
Ralph Fiennes and his personal trainer, Dan Avasilcai. “That look is just for a few days shooting the movie,” he said. “It’s not sustainable. What is perhaps even more impressive than his ripped physique is the fact that Fiennes has largely continued this fitness and diet regime even though filming has long ended, sharing photos and videos on his X account.
“He feels great,” Avasilcai told The Times. “He has more energy, no joint pain and he’s stronger than ever. He can do 17 pull-ups, 78 press-ups in a row and he’s bench-pressing [143 pounds]. Fiennes shows off his workout in a video on X.
“And remember that with all diet and fitness advice, there is no one size fits all. “He feels great,” Avasilcai said. “Form, tempo and discipline - that’s what gets results,” he said. He also advises keeping workouts to under an hour to give yourself time to recover, and throwing in some cardio three times a week - even if it’s just a brisk walk.
“For people over the age of 50 or 60, or people with mobility issues or the degenerative issues with bones that come with age, running on a treadmill is safer than running outside because it gives you a bit of that suspension,” he said. “Form, tempo and discipline - that’s what gets results,” Avasilcai said.
Diet-wise, it’s important to get more protein in - especially if you’re older - to help you maintain muscle, regulate blood sugar levels and reduce cravings, according to Avasilcai. Finally, Avasilcai suggests getting a sports massage three or four times a week to release toxins and sticking to a handful of exercises with a focus on progress.