Exclusive | Matt Damon On Risk Aversion in Hollywood And India: 'You Need to Actively Choose Not to Do That'

In the run-up to The Odyssey, his long-awaited IMAX adaptation of Homer's epic poem, director Christopher Nolan remarked in an interview with The New York Times that the biggest risk of all is to play safe, encouraging filmmakers to take leaps to succeed.

In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter India in Mumbai, the film's lead, Matt Damon, talked about why risk-taking remains so rare in the film business, and what Christopher Nolan told him when they first discussed the project.

Damon’s answer went to the root of the problem. "It is spectacularly difficult to attain some measure of success in the movie business,” he said. “And so once you have it, the impulse is to protect your beachhead."

Damon said he first had this conversation with Steven Soderbergh roughly 25 years ago, about what he described as "protecting your beachhead," and how it requires a conscious, active decision to resist that pull. "You need to actively choose not to do that and try to take some ambitious swing in some other way. The moment you do that, you can feel it... the audience can feel it.”

The actor traced this spirit to the making of The Odyssey as well, recounting a conversation with Nolan when he first pitched the film to Damon. During their discussion, Nolan recollected how Steven Soderbergh and David Fincher had long encouraged him to make a smaller film between his tentpole projects. Nolan's response to that advice was, "I know at some point I'm only going to be able to do small ones. So while I can do the big ones, let's go for it."

Damon said that outlook carried through the entire production. For the actor, the remark was a working philosophy that shaped every decision on set, and one that both artists and audiences can feel when it is genuinely present.