Damon, 52, who starred alongside the actress in the 2011 comedy, We Bought A Zoo, spoke about the scene during a game he and his Oppenheimer co-star Emily Blunt participated in for LadBible.
When the off-camera hosts asked him and Blunt whether “you should tell someone if they have bad breath”, the pair agreed that rather than telling someone directly, they would subtly offer them some chewing gum instead.
Damon then recalled having to unexpectedly kiss Johansson in the scene.
“Can you imagine how horrible that was for me?!” he joked.
Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan attend UK Premiere of “Oppenheimer” at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on July 13, 2023 in London, England. Pic Credit: Dave Benett
/ Dave BenettHe elaborated: “We went to lunch, and she and I both thought it was over. She ate an onion sandwich for lunch and she came in and Cameron Crowe had set the camera up and it was a tight shot of the kiss, and she goes, ‘Oh sh**, I literally just had an onion sandwich!’”
Asked by Blunt whether he was still “slightly aroused” when kissing the actress, Damon jokingly replied: “I was making fun of her the entire time about her onion breath, which I didn’t even smell… because her breath smells like roses.”
The Oscar-winner stars as Lt Leslie Groves Jr, director of the Manhattan Project, in Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer, which is set to be this summer’s blockbuster.
The movie also stars Peaky Blinders actor Cillian Murphy in the lead as the “father of the atomic bomb”.
Damon admitted he was all set to take a break from acting when he was offered the role, but he and his wife of 18 years, Luciana Barroso, made a deal that he’d put his hiatus plans on hold if the filmmaker was an award-winning director.
He told Entertainment Tonight: “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.”