The Evolution of Matt Damon – GQ Magazine

Damon was first urged to read Eric Jagers book The Last Duel, about a dark and dramatic episode in 14th-century France, with a mind to its movie potential, back in 2011. He demurred. Hearing that Martin Scorsese already had the rights, he felt it would be a waste of his time: I said, Well, if Marty has it, hes going to do it with Leo. Seven years later, the rights now available, Damon relented.

At first, he couldnt see it. Twenty pages in, I was just thinking, We cant do this, he says. Like, these guys are absolute savages. These guys are born in the middle of a hundred--year war, they do nothing but rape and pillage and fight for their entire lives. But then the central story gripped him: of two men, one accused of rape by the others wife, and of the woman at the center. She had, at great risk to first her reputation and then to herself, stood up and told the truth, again and again and again, says Damon. It was just pretty amazing. He sent the book to Ridley Scott, whom he had wanted to work with again since their successful collaboration on The Martian. Scott shared his enthusiasm. Now they needed a script.

One evening, Damon had dinner with Ben Affleck. Over the years, the two teenage friends have remained close, in a way thatas they separately acknowledgefar transcends the cartoon best-Hollywood-buddy way it can often be depicted.

Like, I dont want to be his friend in public, you know what I mean? Damon says. Its way too important a friendship for that, and it goes so beyond this career or anything. You know, its a significant part of my life and not for public consumption in that way.

I cant speak for Matt, Affleck offers, but my own kind of sanity and mental health really benefited from having someone who I grew up with and knew as a child who was also going through something similarthis 20-year-plus journey of being in the public eyewho I could reflect on it with honestly, talk things over with, be myself with, who I knew why we were friends, why he was interested and loved me, why I loved him. I often think of people who just become successful and then get thrust into this, and I think, How do they do it without having somebody that they can talk to? Who they can trust? Who knew them before? Its just been such an asset to meand, I think, I hope, to Mattthis relationship that weve had.

The two of them have remained periodic work colleaguesthey share a production companybut after winning their Good Will Hunting Oscar, they had never even attempted to collaborate on another script. To a large extent this was a reflection of just how successful their initial strategy has beenkick-started by that movies success, both had long been busy with the kind of opportunities they could once have only dreamed of. But it was also that what they had done back then seemed too cumbersome to ever repeat.

The process of writing was so time consuming when we did it, when we were 22 and 20, says Damon.

We didnt have jobs, we didnt have anything else to do, echoes Affleck. We had two years to sort of muddle our way through a draft, and then another draftto spend time sitting around and drinking beer and talking about the themes and playing video games and bullshitting.

We really understood the characters, and so we would take them and we would put them in these different scenarios, Damon explains, and then at the end, we kind of mashed these disjointed parts together into what could cohere as some kind of narrative. And thats a really inefficient way to write. And I think both of us just intuitively felt like: Well, were never going to have enough time to do that again.

Visit link:

The Evolution of Matt Damon - GQ Magazine