Matt Damon candidly reveals how 'ruthless' Hollywood has affected him as a father-of-four: 'It's hard'

Matt Damon has gotten candid about balancing both fatherhood and his career in 'ruthless' Hollywood. 

The 55-year-old actor, who is set to appear in Christopher Nolan's upcoming film The Odyssey, opened up about the topic during a recent interview with GQ. 

The Oscar-winning star and his wife Luciana share four daughters: Alexia, 26, Isabella, 19, Gia, 17 and Stella, 15. Upon tying the knot in 2005, Damon adopted her daughter Alexia whom Luciana welcomed from a past relationship. 

During his conversation with the outlet, Damon expressed that he is 'trying to be' there for his children more now while also dealing with the 'uncertain business' of the entertainment industry. 

At the early stages of his career, the actor explained that he had felt he was 'needing to prove something.' 

But years later, it is about 'accepting work and doing it on your terms and doing it as precisely and as well as you can.' 

Damon continued, 'I think about it a lot, especially as my kids are getting older: really trying to be here now. And it's hard for me to do that.

'I think maybe that has to do with my own nature,' the star said, before talking about the uncertainties of a career in Hollywood. 

'It also has to do with this career where you're always trying to figure out what's ahead, because it's such an uncertain business and a pretty ruthless one.'

He added, 'Those kinds of things have conspired to, I think, maybe take me out of where I am, more than I'd like.'

Damon recalled taking role after role following his performance alongside Ben Affleck in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting. 

The pair won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and the stars have since collaborated on a number of projects together. 

Most recently, Damon and Affleck starred in the Netflix crime thriller The Rip which released in January. 

Damon admitted that there is a fear the 'phone's going to stop ringing' one day while adding, 'There's that list that you hear about, and you never know.'

He later clarified, 'There's no official list, but there is - sometimes you can get a movie greenlit at a studio, but not at another studio, and you're really aware of that. I've always been really aware of that.' 

The actor explained that he has been taking on fewer roles in recent years to be more present in his children's lives. 

He is also focusing on his production company he co-founded with Affleck called Artists Equity. 

'My youngest is a freshman, and I've been through this a few times and I know how quickly these years go,' Damon reflected to GQ. 

The star has previously made rare comments about fatherhood, and gave his 'best piece of girl dad advice' to Jason Kelce earlier this year. 

During an episode of the New Heights podcast, Damon simply shared, 'Don't blink.' 

'That s*** is real,' the actor further added. 'My daughter [Gia] broke her collarbone, and this morning she was getting ready for school. She's 17, and she asked me to brush her hair. 

'And so I brushed her hair, and I mean, I hadn't brushed her hair [in] I don't know eight, nine, years?'

He continued that he didn't remember 'the last time' he had done so. 

'It just kind of happened and then life kind of kept going. The changes are so incremental that you don't realize until I ran the hairbrush through her hair, and it's the same, like all of it. You know what I mean?' 

Damon expressed that the moment 'buckled' him and told Kelce once again, 'So don't blink.' 

While putting more focus into fatherhood and family life, the star is also preparing for the release of his latest film The Odyssey. 

The movie, which was directed by Christopher Nolan, additionally stars Zendaya, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o, Charlize Theron and Jon Bernthal. 

The epic fantasy film is an adaptation of Homer's Greek epic of the same name. 

And the project has already broken pre-sale ticket records ahead of its premiere on July 17. 

Last week, the CEO of AMC Theaters Adam Aron revealed in a post on X that The Odyssey marked the 'highest first-day ticket sales for any studio-released movie title since 2022.' 

However, the movie has been slammed by some fans for using American accents and 'historically-inaccurate' language. 

Damon, who is playing the lead role of Odysseus, said taking part in Nolan's epic has been 'bewildering' while talking to GQ.

'Because of where the movie business is going, it was a really weird movie for me personally, in the sense that I had almost a nostalgic feeling the entire time I was making it, because it felt like movies were when I started working.

'And I know that that's going away. I knew that this was the last chance I was ever going to have to do something like this,' the actor added.