Matt Damon has seen the peak of glory and fame in the realm of the entertainment industry. The actor has forged a successful and staggering career working with several prominent directors in the industry including Francis Ford Coppola.
Edward Norton, who was a strong contender for Cappola’s 1997 crime drama, lived his heydays in the industry as well. The actor has been a Marvel star and best known for his role in David Fincher’s cult classic Fight Club.
Francis Ford Coppola Cast Matt Damon Over Edward Norton
Matt Damon and Edward Norton have already worked in some significant movies by the time. Both were rising stars and they were in a race for the lead role in The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker. Of course, Cappola chose Damon over Norton but the Bourne actor had the advantage of one of the most significant titles in his resume as he starred alongside Denzel Washington in Courage Under Fire. The movie also helped the actor to star in Steven Spielberg’s war masterpiece Saving Private Ryan.
Damon told the SAG-AFTRA foundation,
“When I got The Rainmaker a year or so later, Coppola said that he’d seen Courage Under Fire and that that made a big difference, and funnily enough, it was Edward Norton and I who were going against each other. Again for that, and Courage Under Fire pushed me over the edge, and when I met Spielberg later and he looked at me and he said what, you know, and I’d put myself on tape for Saving Private Ryan. I never heard anything I don’t think tape ever got to him, casting director maybe looked at it and chucked it you know, and uh so I thought he’d you know, seen it and he said ‘well you know what do I know you’re from and I said I put myself on tape for your movie because no I didn’t see any tape because what movies have you been in’ I said, ‘I was in a movie called Courage Under Fire.'”
Spielberg recognized the actor for his role in the movie. “You know I turned to my wife when I saw that movie and said that’s the exact guy I want for Private Ryan,” Damon recalled of Speilberg. “I just wish he wasn’t so skinny,” he added. Certainly, Edward Zwick’s $100 million movie has opened doors for career opportunities for Damon as he went on to star in some wonderful titles.
Also read: Matt Damon was Originally Considered for Marvel Role in $179M Disaster Before His BFF Ben Affleck
Edward Norton on Losing The Rainmaker
The Norton and Damon race started long before The Rainmaker. Damon was also a contender for Norton’s Primal Fear. But around the time of The Rainmaker, Norton was not as much into the Cappola movie as his agent. “Matt was already on my radar. Matt had been good in stuff, but you know what’s really funny is Matt and I were both up for The Rainmaker,” Norton told The Off Camera Show.
“That was after I’d done Primal Fear … I’d done a couple of things, and I didn’t know Matt, but I knew who he was. And I think we were in the shortlist on that. And if I had gotten [The Rainmaker], which Matt got, I wouldn’t have done American History X. Because right around then I had read it, and I was feeling it, I was kinda feeling that one. But my agent at the time, who was this very very famous older agent … I was like, ‘I kinda wanna do this little film at New Line about a skinhead and everything,’” Norton said.
The agent of The Incredible Hulk star even threatened the actor to fire him. “And he’s like, ‘Francis Coppola is inviting you to come up to Napa to talk to him,’” Norton recalled. “‘If you don’t get on that plane and go take that meeting, I am firing you as a client.’ And I was like, ‘Okay,’” he added. Win-win for both indeed, both the stars got their desired roles without any hard feelings. The duo collaborated together appearing in the 1998 film Rounders.
Source: SAG-AFTRA foundation, The Off Camera Show.
