Matt Damon feared his ‘bare bicep days were over’

Matt Damon had his family’s names tattooed on his arms because he thought his days of showing off his arms were over.

Matt Damon got a tattoo because he thought his “bare bicep days were over”.

The 55-year-old actor stars in Sir Christopher Nolan’s Greek epic The Odyssey as Odysseus and while the director had despaired at the “nightmare” of covering all the supporting cast’s body art, he thought it would be much easier with his lead – only to discover he has a “tasteful” inking of wife Luciana’s name along with those of their daughters Alexia, 27, Isabella, 20, Gia, 17, and Stella, 15, in cursive script at the top of his arm.

Christopher told Amy Poehler on her Good Hang podcast: “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.

“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.”

“[Matt] takes his shirt off at the fitting, and he’s got a f****** tattoo. And I was like, ‘Not you as well.’ Like, what?”

But Christopher was understanding when he heard Matt’s explanation.

He recalled: “He said to me, ‘Well, if I’m to be perfectly honest, I thought my bare bicep days were over.’

“And I said, ‘Okay. Fair enough. The truth is, I think they’re just beginning.’”

As a result, Matt had to spend “a little extra time in the chair” throughout the shoot, but the director wouldn’t have had anyone else play Odysseus.

He said: “He’s in exactly the right place in his time of life.

“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.”

Christopher needed someone with the “empathetic ability to draw the audience into a character’s dilemma,” and felt Matt had shown he could do that across a wide range of roles over the years.

He said: “He has that openness. He brings the audience with him.

“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.”

Matt previously revealed he got back to his high school weight ahead of shooting The Odyssey.

He told Jason and Travis Kelce on their New Heights podcast earlier this year: “I was in really good shape. I lost a lot of weight. [Nolan] wanted me lean but strong.

“Just because of this other thing that I did with my doctor, I stopped eating gluten.

“I used to walk around at between 185 and 200, and I did that whole movie at 167. And I haven’t been that light since high school. So it was a lot of training and a really strict diet.”