Matt Damon has a wonderful acting career with several hits that helped him become one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. With great projects, he also met with several celebrities along the way including the legendary star, Jack Nicholson. Highly recognized for playing rebels against the social structure in Hollywood, he left Damon terrified of his sinister improvisation.
Jack Nicholson’s Improvised a Murder Scene from The Departed
In Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, the former explained that the scene was simply written as “Costello executes a man kneeling in the marsh.”
However, Nicholson was quite excited about that particular moment and said to Damon at the time,
“‘Wait until you hear what I did.’ He goes, ‘Well, it was an eighth of a page,’ and he goes, ‘I’ve seen that before, so what I did is I made it a woman…and I put Ray [Winstone] in the scene with me.’”
His sinister modification didn’t just end at it as it turned quite eerie which left Damon speechless.
Matt Damon Was Shocked by Jack Nicholson’s Ideas for The Murder Scene
“[Nicholson] goes…I shoot her in the back of the head, and she falls over. Now, you could end the scene there, but if you keep the camera rolling, I turn to Ray and I say, “Geez, she fell funny.”
He continued,
“Now, that’s a very sinister line. It suggests that I’ve done this before. There’s a way that people fall.”
He recalled that the scene could have ended there but he further added,
“Now you could end the scene there, but if you keep the camera rolling, Ray reveals an axe that he’s holding behind his back. He’s gonna chop her up.”
He mentioned that Winstone’s character started to step forward for what they improvised in the scene. But if the camera were left rolling, “I say, ‘Wait, I think I wanna f**k her again.’ Now that’s a very sinister line.’”
Given that the retired actor had quite an experience, he knew what his character needed to appear more sinister. This improvisation skill would put Ryan Reynolds thinking that he would need to take his craft to the next level. He is widely recognized for his amazing modification of his Deadpool role. He is set to return with his deadpan comedy anti-hero role in Deadpool 4 which is set to release on November 8, 2024.
Meanwhile, The Departed can be streamed from Amazon Prime Video.
Source: Marc Maron’s WTF podcast