From grueling weekly schedules to massive IMAX battles, Matt Damon shares insights on the intense, “old-school” practical filmmaking and the eye-popping cast that made Christopher Nolan’s ancient Greek epic his most challenging project to date.

INDULGE: What did if feel like being part of such an epic?

MATT: It was an unbelievable opportunity. One of the great experiences I’ve had in my life because it was so challenging. Not just for me, but for everybody. Every week would go by, and by Friday evening everyone would be wrapping and going, “Did we just do that this week?” And that feeling of just accomplishing that week after week of this incredibly ambitious project. It’s an epic story obviously, it’s been around for 3,000 years, but the way Chris wanted to do it, do everything practically, do everything on camera, and what that would require of everybody who worked on it. It was clear to all of us. It just meant that everybody had to kind of push past anything they had ever done before. So I left that experience and said to everybody that I’ve never been more proud to be a part of the team. It was a special experience making it, and I’m glad that it’s translated into the experience for the audience.

INDULGE: What do you hope the audience feels?

MATT: I hope they experience the odyssey. I hope that they go on that journey with Odysseus. The scale of it. It was very difficult to get the shots that we got and to do it in the IMAX format, to be able to put people in it, and have them know that everything is real. If you see 1000 people in the middle of a battle, then there were 1000 people there. If you see ships, then there were ships out there. All that coordination to make it happen. It took thousands of people working really hard to make it happen and I love the fact that it’s an old school way of making movies. That’s how the movie would’ve been made 80 years ago, and so to do it that way, but on this new format is pretty cool.

INDULGE: Any thoughts on the cast?

MATT: It is an amazing cast yet, but I felt like they all just slotted right into their roles like they became these people and it made it really easy for me because I was bouncing around from one to the other and through these different stories and it was just an incredible experience. I’ve always said like a great actor is good enough for both of you. You just look at them and you get pulled into the world. And I got to have that experience with all these different people. Some of them I’d worked with before, but some of them I hadn’t. It’s kind of an eye-popping cast when you see the names that are in it. But they really are these people and you really get into this kind of comprehensive and real full world.

— Kelly Fine