Damon saw his popularity in Hollywood plunge in the early 2000s, and was convinced 2002 film The Bourne Identity would be a disaster following a series of problems on the shoot.
He tells Britain's Total Film magazine, "I had two movies that had come out that had tanked and Bourne had all the signals of being a disaster, because we shot so many times and it was delayed like a year coming out.
"The phone had stopped ringing completely. And you could really feel it. In Hollywood, by any measure, I was cold - cold as ice."
So the 39 year old was ecstatic when director Steven Soderbergh contacted him in 2001 to star as bipolar whistleblower Mark Whitacre in the thriller - despite production not beginning on the picture until 2008.
He adds, "Steven was coming off his Oscar for Traffic and two of his movies were Best Picture nominees in the same year. By Hollywood standards, he was as hot as you could get.
"He was really excited and he said, 'I've found something for us to do together.' I literally hadn't had a phone call in nine months. I was dumbfounded. I went home and read it (the script) and thought, 'This is one of those great roles that comes along every seven or eight years.'"