Matt Damon said he’d take a break from acting unless Christopher Nolan called – then he called

Matt Damon didn't want to miss the chance to work with Christopher Nolan again. The Oppenheimer star admitted he was so desperate to reunite with the director that he worked a clause into a deal he had made with his wife to break from acting.

"This is going to sound made up, but it's actually true," Damon told Entertainment Weekly during their Around the Table interview with his co-stars and Nolan. "I had – not to get too personal – negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off. 

"I had been in Interstellar, and then Chris put me on ice for a couple of movies, so I wasn't in the rotation, but I actually negotiated in couples therapy ­– this is a true story – the one caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called. This is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything because he never tells you. He just calls you out of the blue. And so, it was a moment in my household."

Damon had previously played one of the main characters in Nolan’s 2014 movie Interstellar alongside Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain. Clearly, the experience was so rewarding that the actor was willing to make an exception to return to work. 

In Oppenheimer, Damon plays Leslie Groves, who directed the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb during World War II. Based on the biography American Prometheus about J. Robert Oppenheimer, Nolan’s ambitious movie follows the theoretical physicist as he helps develop the first nuclear weapons. 

Oppenheimer is out on July 21. For more upcoming movies, check out our breakdown of 2023 movie release dates.