Matt Damon is aware of the memes — and he loves them. The actor, who broke into Hollywood with Good Will Hunting and takes on perhaps his biggest challenge yet with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, tends to take on roles where his character gets stranded.
“I’ve seen those memes,” Damon tells Polygon at a press junket for The Odyssey. “They’re funny. Friends send them to me. My kids sent one to me. How much money’s been spent trying to bring me back from places?”
I’m gonna ride this pony until it runs out.
In The Martian, Damon’s Mark Watney gets stranded on the red planet. In Interstellar, Nolan stuck him even further out in space. Saving Private Ryan is about rescuing Damon’s titular soldier from behind enemy lines. The Odyssey hinges on Odysseus’ difficult journey to return home after the Trojan War, which involves getting stranded multiple times in his voyage across the Mediterranean Sea.
If Damon has his way, this won’t be the last time he needs rescuing, either.
“I’m gonna ride this pony until it runs out,” he says.
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Image: DreamWorks Pictures
In total, Hollywood has spent roughly $600 million on movies where Matt Damon gets stranded, though those movies have earned almost $2 billion at the box office combined (and that’s not even counting The Odyssey, which hasn’t been released yet). Meanwhile, one movie fan did the math and calculated that it would have cost $900 billion in-universe to rescue Damon’s character in Interstellar alone.
“Because in Interstellar, I’m on, like, another planet,” Damon notes. “That is a lot of jet fuel.”
“Yeah, we arrived for you,” Anne Hathaway, his co-star in both The Odyssey and Interstellar, chimes in.
Nolan’s latest movie also represents another recurring theme across Damon’s filmography: playing really smart characters. After all, he got his start as Will Hunting, the college janitor whose innate intelligence promised to lift him out of a working-class life. Now, in his latest role, Damon plays Odysseus, whose defining trait is his brilliant mind.
“Odysseus is known for his intelligence and cunning,” Damon says, “and that’s kind of his cross to bear.”
“He’s played really smart, stranded men,” Hathaway jokes about her co-star.
Whatever comes next, Matt Damon is prepared to get stranded wherever Christopher Nolan (or any other director) deems necessary.
“I’m up for it wherever it is,” he says. “It’s worked out really well.”
The Odyssey is in theaters July 17.