Clint Eastwood reportedly snapped at Matt Damon while filming their 2009 film ‘Invictus’ as the latter attempted to break the veteran director’s strict rule of allowing his actors only one take to complete their shot before moving on to another. Similar to several actors, Damon also felt a lot of pressure to perform under the one take rule, especially because he had to do a South African accent for his character. “It was a little terrifying ‘cause I was playing a South African, and that’s a really hard accent to do,” the ‘Good Will Hunting’ star told First We Feast.
Damon shared that he spent a lot of time practicing the accent and while his first take got an “OK,” the actor felt he could have done a better job. “Clint says, ‘Cut, print, check the gate,’ which means, ‘We’re done here, let’s move on,’” Damon explained, adding, “I say, ‘Boss, do you think maybe we can get one more?’ [Eastwood] just turns, and he goes, ‘Why? Do you want to waste everybody’s time?’ I was like, ‘OK, we’re done! Alright, let’s move on,’” he recalled while speaking about the filming process. ‘Invictus’ later opened to positive reviews and even earned Damon an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
What role did Matt Damon play in ‘Invictus?’
Damon played the role of Francois Pienaar, the captain of Springboks rugby team, in Eastwood’s biographical sports film. In the movie, South African president Nelson Mandela, played by Morgan Freeman, meets with Damon’s character and tells him that Springboks’ victory in the Rugby World Cup will unite and inspire the nation. Mandela then shares the British poem ‘Invictus’ with Pienaar and shares that the poem inspired him during his time in prison.
While moving towards a potential victory, the Springboks’ team visits Robben Island, where Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail. Damon’s character is then inspired by Mandela and shares his amazement about the president spending 30 years “in a tiny cell” but coming out “ready to forgive the people who put him there.”
On the day of the final, Pienaar motivates his teammates while Mandela himself arrives on the field wearing a Springbok cap and a replica of Pienaar’s number six jersey. The Springboks eventually wins and Mandela meets Pienaar on the field to celebrate the win. Towards the end of the film Mandela hands over the William Webb Ellis Cup to Pienaar as the Springboks become the rugby union’s world champions.
Matt Damon ‘begged’ to be on Clint Eastwood’s ‘Hereafter’
After the success of ‘Invictus,’ Damon was eager to work with Eastwood again for his new film ‘Hereafter.’ However, the actor was reportedly busy with another movie when Eastwood was planning his filming schedule. The actor-director duo eventually made it work and Damon bagged the lead role in the film. Speaking to SheKnows about the arrangement, Damon joked, “That was after a long, prolonged lobbying campaign [laughs].”
Damon comtinued, “Some begging too, I’m not afraid to tell you that I begged Clint. There was a few week stretch there where I thought — because at first, he wanted to go in the fall and I was busy in September, October, November and December — I couldn’t get free because I was on another movie. I said, ‘I can do it in August. I can do it in January [laughs], just not those four months.’ Clint said, ‘No, the train has kind of left the station. We’re going.’”
“I was crestfallen obviously. I was really bummed. Then he figured out a way to shoot the rest of the movie and just fit me in January,” Damon added.
Damon also spoke about his eagerness to be part of Eastwood’s film after ‘Invictus.’ “He’s a great actor. He knows how to create an environment for his actors. He trusts his actors. He trusts everybody that he works with, he gives them all leeway to do their best work. He creates an environment where he can do it. He doesn’t beat you to death with it either. So, you have plenty of time to prepare, come in and be ready. It’s a blissful experience,” he explained.