Matt Damon: I Dropped 20 Pounds for Movie

Matt Damon fans might notice something a little different about him when the Christopher Nolan movie The Odyssey debuts in July: He's thinner. The 55-year-old says he dropped about 20 pounds, maybe more, for the movie, on the director's request. "I was in really good shape," Damon said on the Kelce brothers' New Heights podcast, reports People. "I lost a lot of weight. He said he wanted me, like, lean but strong. It's a weird thing." Damon told the hosts he was typically somewhere between 185 and 200 pounds prior to the film. "I did that whole movie at 167," Damon said. "And I haven't been that light since high school."

He got there through daily training and "a really strict diet," he says. Specifically on the latter: Damon swore off gluten and has continued the diet since. "I found a gluten-free beer," he says. "It's been so long since I've had gluten, I can't tell if it's good or not, so that's a good sign." Some dietitians might beg to differ, notes USA Today. "Cutting gluten has been glamorized as a quick fix for weight loss, bloating or inflammation," Caroline Thomason told the newspaper previously. "But the truth is, unless you have a medical reason to avoid it, removing gluten won't magically solve those issues."