Matt Damon discusses his career and why he’s rarely a director’s first choice.
Matt Damon’s career has blossomed since his Award-winning Academy performance in Good Will Hunting, with the actor has starred in at least a dozen critically acclaimed roles since then. To promote his current critically praised role in Stillwater, Damon was interviewed for a profile in The New York Times Magazine, during which he discusses his career, including how he missed out on several high-profile roles.
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Damon revealed that he was once offered the lead role in director James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar but turned it down because he “didn’t want to spend all that time learning how to ride a horse and shoot arrows.” He also passed on the lead in Bradley Cooper’s 2016 thriller Burnt, which he calls a “big mistake.”
Though he cameoed in Thor: Ragnarok and Deadpool 2, Damon laments that big-budget superhero films have eliminated mid-budget dramas that helped him build a following. “You need those roles to develop as an actor and build your career, and those are gone. Courtroom dramas, all that stuff, they can’t get made. You’re looking for a home run that can play in all these different territories to all these different ages. You want the most accessible thing you can make, in terms of language and culture. And what is that? A superhero movie.”
Damon has benefitted from one of his character’s aspects in his career: he is generally played as a likable guy, allowing him to approach his less-than-stellar roles in an inventive way. He explains, “Whatever those wholesome associations are that people say I have, having them allowed me a chance to work with clever directors who want to subvert that.”
It’s a reminder that Damon learned early in his career when he collaborated with Tom Hanks on the modern classic Saving Private Ryan. Damon recalls, “All our young actors were sitting there with Tom in between takes, and he said: ‘You are all one movie away from being the biggest movie star in the world. That’s the good news. The bad news is your mailman is one movie away from being the biggest movie star in the world.'”
On the other hand, Damon is not always the first actor cast in roles he is offered. He reveals, “Most scripts I get have the fingerprints of another actor on them. That’s just the way it is.”
But Damon has found a way to make the most of those situations, turning them into opportunities to collaborate with exciting directors. For his latest film, Stillwater, he worked with director adaption Nick Cassavetes, a chance that he relished. He explains, “I wanted to work with Nick because he’s an interesting filmmaker. I wanted to see what it would be like to have that experience. The director is the captain of the ship, and you want somebody who is going to be interesting and provocative.”
Matt Damon’s career has been an interesting one to watch. After his Award-winning Academy performance in Good Will Hunting, Damon has starred in a dozen critically acclaimed roles. In a recent interview, Damon discussed his career and why he usually isn’t a director’s first choice.
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