Matt Damon has confirmed that he’ll be playing a small role in Terry Gilliam‘s next project, The Zero Theorem. It will be Gilliam’s first feature since The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus – he’s since been busy directing opera The Damnation of Faust in London’s West End – and will be his first team-up with Matt Damon since the somewhat ill-fated Brothers Grimm in 2006.

Matt Damon – currently sporting an uncharacteristic shaved head as a result of his role in Neill Blomkamp‘s upcoming sci-fi Elysium – won’t play a big role in The Zero Theorem, but his friendship with Gilliam landed him the small part. Given his current hair situation, Gilliam decided to make that a part of his character, giving him a receded hair-line and a wig of severe white spiked hair.

The Zero Theorem will star Christoph Waltz as an eccentric computer genius who is working on a program that will finally determine the purpose of existence itself. Not exactly adding captions to cats, is it? Gilliam’s films are always utterly bonkers, and this promises to be no exception. Waltz’ efforts at completing his program are hampered by the mysterious Management, who send love interests and other such distractions to get in his way. Quite what any of this will look like on film is anyone’s guess at this point, but we hope Gilliam – who hasn’t had much luck getting projects made smoothly in recent years – can keep control of this one. He’s one of the most interesting film-makers in the business, so we look for to seeing where The Zero Theorem goes.

And, of course, to seeing Matt Damon as we’ve never seen him before.