Making an impact in the Hollywood industry with his Oscar winner Good Will Hunting alongside childhood friend Ben Affleck, Matt Damon made his legacy as one of the youngest stars to receive an Academy Award for Best Screenplay at the age of 27. After that, the star would go on to be a part of some of the biggest blockbusters in cinema history.
While most of the films in his career were the choices he made with his understanding and experience from the business, Damon has also infamously made a name for himself as the star that has declined some career-defining roles in the past. But just this one time, he took his mother’s advice to not take on a role, which helped him stay away from making a big mistake.
Matt Damon Refused A Role After Talking To His Mother
From refusing to star as Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy to declining the role of Jake Sully in James Cameron’s multi-billion dollar Avatar franchise for 10% of the original film’s revenue, Matt Damon has seen his fair share of mishaps in his career when it came to choosing a role in a film. While he may have had these experiences in the past, this one time, he was glad that he wasn’t part of a film, thanks to his mother.
You may also like: “That messed me up for a couple years”: Matt Damon Admits Ben Affleck Calmed Him Down When He Was Panicking After Never Seen Before Fame in Hollywood
During the press conference for his then-upcoming film The Adjustment Bureau in 2011, the Ocean’s Eleven star was asked why he refused to portray the role of Dieter Dengler in Werner Herzog’s 2006 war/drama film Rescue Dawn. The star revealed that while he was thinking about taking the role at first, he had a talk with his mother on the phone where he explained the scenes and working conditions he would be in during the shoot. Here, his mother talked about how he always doesn’t have to push himself too much. He recalled what his mother said:
“You don’t always have to go into the jungle and lose a bunch of weight, you’re allowed to have fun.”
Thus, Damon decided to opt-out. This proved to be a good thing for him as the role eventually went to Christain Bale, who had to go through hell during the shoot as he ate live maggots, tussled with dangerous serpents, and lost a lot of his weight, all for the film to become a box office disappointment at $7.2 Million.
You may also like: Christian Bale Claims Thor 4’s Deleted Scenes Would Have Made the $760 Million Movie “Not Family Friendly”: “There’s an awful lot that I wish was in this film”
Why Did Matt Damon Decline So Many Good Roles?
Call it bad timing or just bad luck, but it seems like Damon always falls prey to these factors when he declined most of the roles that became part of prominent pieces of cinema. During his selection as Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Trilogy, the star refused to take on the character because he thought it would become a role that would pigeonhole his career to that one character. And while declining the offer made by James Cameron, he was busy shooting for the Jason Bourne franchise, and couldn’t take two high-profile roles at the same time.
Rescue Dawn, streaming on Tubi.
Source: Looper
