Matt Damon is embracing the now.

On screen, the Oscar winner is about to deliver his most epic movie yet with The Odyssey, the massive Christopher Nolan-directed adaptation of the ancient Greek poem about a hero’s quest to return home from war to his wife (Anne Hathaway) and son (Tom Holland).

Voyaging between locations in Iceland, Morocco, Italy, Scotland and Greece with IMAX cameras in tow, “it felt more like an expedition than a movie,” says Damon, 55, who carved himself down to 167 lbs. of shredded muscle to play the complicated, plagued Odysseus, a king and warrior who dares to defy the gods.

Back on dry land, the Brooklyn-based dad of four daughters with wife Luciana, 50—Alexia, 27, Isabella, 20, Gia, 17, and Stella, 15—ticks off his priorities in this era of his life: passion projects, his longtime nonprofit Water.org and locking into the last few years he has kids still at home.

The star acknowledges he’s in a “new phase of life,” as the empty-nest years approach. “Having two older kids who are out of the nest and knowing how fast these final years go, we’re trying to be mindful of holding onto what we can,” he says.

Damon’s family came to visit while he shot The Odyssey, marking the actor’s third film with Nolan following 2014’s Interstellar and 2023’s Oppenheimer. While bringing to life Homer’s hallmark monsters, from the Cyclops to the Sirens, the actor was alternately lashed with fake rain by “two jet engines, like 737 engines, blowing water on us” and stuffed into a giant Trojan Horse.

Could he have any phobias left? “I worked through a lot of them on this one, definitely,” he laughs. “Claustrophobia was one, but I hope I’m on the other side of that one now.”

Born in Cambridge, Mass., Damon was bitten by the acting bug young alongside his childhood friend Ben Affleck. “We were in our teens coming down to New York on the train or on the bus to audition for things, like The Mickey Mouse Club,” Damon recalls. Then 1997’s Good Will Hunting launched them both to stardom, winning them Oscars for screenwriting (their moms were their dates).

The enduring star has since dominated the box office across decades, hopping from crime dramas and black comedies to blockbuster franchises while earning Oscar nominations for 2009’s sports drama Invictus and 2015’s sci-fi adventure The Martian.

“I remember at 25, I got the part in The Rainmaker. Francis [Ford Coppola] gave me that job and I’ll never forget that,” he says. “It’s just been an incredible journey. Some of the movies didn’t work, but ideally, in another 10 years, I’d like to just keep doing things that I can feel really proud of.”

At this stage in his life, “I just try to think about what I can control and what I can’t,” says Damon, whose Odysseus struggles against a predetermined fate. “And instead of railing against the gods about things that I can’t control, being fastidious and intentional about what I can and accepting what I can’t.”

With that, he says, has come a sense of calm.

“I think starting out as an actor, you have to feel that way a little bit because the odds are so long against you. You need to have that kind of defy-the-gods mentality to go into this life, because it’s a bit of the circus life, and it’s not a normal way to go,” he adds. “But at this stage of my life I feel a lot more at peace.”

For more on Matt Damon and The Odyssey, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, available everywhere Friday.