John Leguizamo and Matt Damon are working together again, this time for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the filmmaking pair known as the Daniels. Leguizamo discussed the reunion at an October 2 celebration in Beverly Hills. He praised Damon as a colleague but kept the new film’s story to himself.
“Working with Matt is a joy and a half,” Leguizamo said. His comments follow their roles in The Odyssey, where their characters have a close bond. He also spoke warmly about the younger performers joining them on the next project.
Leguizamo was attending the sixth annual Celebración of Cinema & Television at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills. He received the Career Achievement Award, with The Odyssey among the work recognized. The event took place on October 2, rather than at the new film’s premiere.
The friendship they built on The Odyssey
In Christopher Nolan’s film, Damon plays Odysseus and Leguizamo plays Eumaeus, his faithful servant and trusted friend. A July interview with Leguizamo described how the actors developed that friendship for the screen. It was Leguizamo’s first experience on a Nolan set, and he discussed the demands of working with the film’s large-format IMAX cameras.
The production took its cast across Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland and Scotland. Those locations were part of Nolan’s approach to filming the story around the world on IMAX film. For the actors, the work involved remote landscapes and changing weather, not just a familiar studio set.
Leguizamo gave a more personal example at the film’s New York premiere in July. He remembered freezing while filming in February in period costume. Nolan took off his own coat and put it on him. Damon then joked about having spent months working in cold water in Iceland. Leguizamo also recalled Nolan standing close behind the camera, where the actors could see him, instead of watching their performances from a distant monitor.
The Odyssey opened on July 17, 2026. It adapts Homer’s account of a difficult journey home after war, with Damon leading a cast that also includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway and Lupita Nyong’o. Nolan wrote and directed the film, and produced it with Emma Thomas. That production is separate from the Daniels project; Nolan is not its announced director.
Their earlier connection: Titan A.E.
Damon and Leguizamo’s shared credits reach back much further than this summer. Both provided voices for Titan A.E. in 2000: Damon voiced Cale, while Leguizamo voiced Gune. The animated science-fiction film was released by Twentieth Century Fox. It put them in the same cast without placing their faces on screen together.
Voice acting is also a familiar part of Leguizamo’s own career. He played Sid the Sloth in the Ice Age films, alongside live-action roles such as Chi-Chi Rodriguez in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. His July interview covered both kinds of performance, along with his work as a playwright and the way writing and improvisation influence his acting.
Who the Daniels are
Kwan and Scheinert made their feature-directing debut with Swiss Army Man in 2016, starring Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe. They wrote and directed it together after making music videos as the Daniels. The film centers on a stranded man and his unlikely friendship with a body he finds washed ashore.
Their next feature together was Everything Everywhere All at Once, released in 2022. Again, they shared writing and directing credits. Its science-fiction action story begins with an exhausted Chinese American woman who cannot finish her taxes, taking a very different starting point from the stranded-island setting of Swiss Army Man.
At the 2023 Oscars, Kwan and Scheinert won for directing and original screenplay. They also shared the Best Picture award as producers with Jonathan Wang. Everything Everywhere All at Once won the lead-actress, supporting-actor and supporting-actress categories, as well as film editing, giving it seven wins in total.
The new cast, and what is still under wraps
Sandra Oh, Sean Kaufman, Michael Gandolfini and Charles Melton are also in the reported cast. Kwan and Scheinert are writing and directing, and will produce with Wang through Playgrounds’ deal with Universal. Leguizamo’s involvement was first reported as negotiations in July.
The movie is still untitled, and its plot and character names remain under wraps. The two actors’ Odyssey roles do not establish who they play in the Daniels’ new movie.
