Matt Damon says no one was going to fund Good Will Hunting for two nobodies until Robin Williams took the role
"Ben and I wanted to star in the movie and we knew we were worth nothing, so we needed to get somebody"
"The story we had heard was that because Harvey Keitel signed up for Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino got $500,000 and he could make the movie"
"so we wrote that part that Robin eventually took… looking for an actor who could get us some money"
"if Morgan Freeman or Denzel Washington wanted to come in and play it… if Meryl Streep took the part… we really left it open because we were trying to get the movie made"
Posted by Frosty_Jeweler911
7 Comments
Looking back in another twenty years I think it will show that even if Affleck hit superstardom heights with front page paparazzi shots for years that it will be Damon who has a more enduring legacy. He comes off as such a wholesome guy. I hope he and his family have many years of happiness.
Just imagine how many times he truly has asked and answered this question.
The sandals, the foot placement and hand rub all universal signals of old man territory.
For all that Ben Affleck is the bigger paparazzi darling, Matt Damon is much better at these kinds of media interactions. He’s very personable during interviews and a good raconteur.
However… what I’ve always liked about this clip is his absolute dad outfit. Polo shirt, shorts, flip flops? That’s a dad outfit if I ever saw one.
IIRC in a different interview he also talks about how they wrote the part to be an easy shoot. Only a few days, only a couple of locations so the star could come in, film their parts easy, and then move on.
Sounds like luck of the draw they didn’t end up casting peewee herman.
They’re both really smart guys and they had a very practical take on how they could approach getting themselves into a big movie that garnered attention. They made some big bets and they paid off massively. But I think they both worked hard for it. I’ve always liked their story because they weren’t nepo kids with a fast pass to the front of the line. They worked the system by taking the time to put in real work and effort to understand the industry and what it would take to make it.