{"id":768240,"date":"2026-07-17T12:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/768240\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T12:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:28:12","slug":"matt-damon-received-phone-call-from-ben-affleck-hes-waited-45-years-to-get-after-he-watched-the-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/768240\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Damon received phone call from Ben Affleck he\u2019s \u2018waited 45 years to get\u2019 after he watched The Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Matt Damon<\/a> has opened up about long-term best friend Ben Affleck<\/a>\u2019s reaction to The Odyssey<\/a>, revealing that his Good Will Hunting co-star gave him a compliment he\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n

Based on Homer\u2019s Greek epic, The Odyssey is the latest Hollywood blockbuster from Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan<\/a>. Damon stars as war hero Odysseus, with Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and Anne Hathaway among the supporting cast.<\/p>\n

Critics are already raving about the film<\/a>, but speaking alongside Zendaya, The Martian star Damon revealed that there were only a handful of people whose opinions on The Odyssey he cared to know.<\/p>\n

One of them is Ben Affleck, Damon\u2019s long-term collaborator who he met back in school. The pair have been through \u201ca whole hell of a lot together\u201d in their 45-year friendship, Damon told MTV UK<\/a>, adding: \u201cHe\u2019s one of the great loves of my life, I will say about Ben.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AffleckAffleck (left) gushed over \u2018The Odyssey\u2019 (Getty)<\/p>\n

Damon then recalled how when Affleck saw The Odyssey, \u201cI got a phone call from him that I think I\u2019ve been waiting 45 years to get.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t stop talking for an hour,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was like he\u2019d seen the movie 20 times. He got absolutely everything, every detail, he somehow soaked it all in in one viewing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Damon said that he\u2019d also been nervous to see the reaction from his second eldest daughter Isabella, as the 20-year-old had proven a \u201cvery tough critic\u201d of his films in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018Dad, I\u2019m proud of you,\u2019\u201d said Damon. \u201cNow, this is a kid who, I made a movie called The Great Wall once, and she calls it \u2018The Wall\u2019\u2026 She\u2019s like, \u2018Dad, there\u2019s nothing great about that movie.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"DamonDamon as Odysseus in \u2018The Odyssey\u2019 (Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a very tough critic, and so [with] those reactions, I feel like the movie\u2019s already come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately for Damon \u2013 who is also father to daughters Gia, 17, and Stella, 15, with wife Luciana, and Alexia, 27, from a previous relationship \u2013 the reviews for The Odyssey couldn\u2019t look better ahead of the film\u2019s cinema release on Friday (17 July).<\/p>\n

The Independent\u2019s Clarisse Loughrey gave the film five stars<\/a>, writing: \u201cAs a feat of pure adaptation, Nolan has achieved something I admittedly thought was near impossible. His stamp is all over the film \u2013 this is intellectual, brutalist, muscular Hollywood fare \u2013 yet it never wavers in its commitment to, and comprehension of, its source text.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Telegraph\u2019s Robbie Collins and Guardian\u2019s Peter Bradshaw also awarded The Odyssey full marks; as did The Times, Evening Standard and Metro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-768240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}