During a press tour for Netflix’s crime thriller The Rip, actor Matt Damon expressed his disapproval of the tradition of awards campaigning. Known for his three Oscar acting nominations and a win for the screenplay of Good Will Hunting, Damon shared his thoughts on the grueling Oscars season while promoting his latest projects in Hollywood. The actor, also a cast member in Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed film Oppenheimer, which took home the Best Picture prize in 2024, reflected on the pressures of awards season.
Asked by podcast host Krista Smith on Netflix’s Skip Intro about what part of Hollywood life he prefers missing, Damon was clear and immediate. He said he dislikes awards season entirely, stating it as something he would gladly skip.
Damon Calls Awards Campaigning “Backwards” and “Odd”
Matt Damon elaborated on his feelings towards the campaigning culture surrounding the Oscars.
“What I don’t like is this idea of campaigning,”
he said.
“It seems completely backwards to me and odd. Maybe it’s good for movies, just having it all out there and gets the culture thinking and talking about movies. I hope that’s the case…”
Damon’s remarks highlight his conflicted stance, acknowledging that while campaigning might generate buzz and discussion around films, the process itself feels unnatural to him.
Upcoming Campaign Season with Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’
Despite his distaste for awards campaigning, Damon is set to face it again during the 2025-2026 season with another Christopher Nolan project, The Odyssey. The actor described his involvement in this ambitious Greek epic as a transformative experience.
“It did have a profound effect on me,”
he admitted, revealing a deeper connection to the film’s production and scope.
Comparing the project to classic cinema, Damon explained,
“Doing ‘The Odyssey’ this last year, it felt like my one chance in my life to make a David Lean movie, you know? That I was making the last big movie on film that I was ever going to get to make.”
This statement underscores the significance of the film for Damon, both professionally and personally.
Reflecting on his readiness for the role, Damon had earlier said,
“If I look objectively at what was required to do that job, I think it came at just the right time in my life. I think I would have been miserable 20 years ago, trying to do that job. You were uncomfortable every day. But I really enjoyed, like, deeply enjoyed every minute of it.”
Embracing Gratitude and the Nostalgia of Filmmaking
Damon delved into the emotional journey the role took him on, emphasizing the theme of gratitude in his process.
“Intellectually, I understood that concept of you’re not in control of what happens, but you are in control of how you feel about it — it’s easier said than done,”
he said. He connected his current experience with early memories of filmmaking, recalling the excitement of shooting School Ties with cinematographer Freddie Francis.
“But to really feel gratitude — and I think because it was tied into not only the joy of being able to have a role that great with a director that great with a group of people that great and a story that great, but in that sense of nostalgia I had for how I started, how I came into the business, the feeling I had when I was shooting ‘School Ties’ and Freddie Francis was the cinematographer and I, you know, and I was like, ‘This is really happening.’”
The Technical Innovation Behind ‘The Odyssey’
The Odyssey marks a cinematic milestone as the first Hollywood feature to be entirely shot using IMAX film cameras. Damon shared insight into the challenges this presented during the New Heights podcast, emphasizing the difficulty of recording dialogue scenes given the noise of traditional IMAX cameras.
“IMAX cameras are really loud. It sounds like a blender, like a Cuisinart in your face when the camera’s close to you. So there’s never been these dialogue [scenes in IMAX],”
Damon explained. He continued,
“We couldn’t have this conversation with a normal IMAX camera because you wouldn’t be able to hear us. They built this giant thing around the IMAX for those dialogue scenes and a system of mirrors so your eye line would be close to the camera and you could talk to the other actor. The amount of work that went into figuring out how to do [that], because he wanted to do 100 percent IMAX and he did it!”
To address these noise issues, a new IMAX casing called a “blimp” was developed for the production. Nolan described this advancement as transformative, stating,
“The blimp system is a game-changer. You can be shooting a foot from [an actor’s] face while they’re whispering and get usable sound. What that opens up are intimate moments of performance on the world’s most beautiful format.”
Looking Ahead: The Impact of Nolan’s Films on Damon’s Career
Matt Damon’s involvement in Christopher Nolan’s films has clearly marked a pivotal stage in his career, bridging classic filmmaking techniques with contemporary storytelling. While Damon remains skeptical about the merits of Oscar campaigning, his roles in Oppenheimer and The Odyssey have reaffirmed his commitment to challenging and meaningful cinema. As the next award season approaches, audiences can expect Damon to engage once more with the awards circuit, even as he voices his reservations toward the process itself.
