How The Beatles convinced Matt Damon to reunite with Ben Affleck: “What are we doing, man?”
While everyone enjoys the image of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck being permanently joined at the hip since childhood to further Hollywood’s greatest platonic love story, the truth is that they went a long time without working with each other in a meaningful capacity.
Sure, they remained best friends throughout, but it’s not as if Damon and Affleck were the Bogie and Bacall, Laurel and Hardy, or Abbott and Costello of their day who knocked out a number of movies together in quick succession, although that was admittedly the case for a while.
After appearing as uncredited extras in Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams, the duo were both cast members in School Ties, Good Will Hunting, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back between 1992 and 2001, so they did make six films together in little over a decade.
However, it would be another 18 years before they were part of the same ensemble again, which was fittingly under the direction of Good Will Hunting‘s guardian angel, Kevin Smith, in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. Since then, they’ve doubled down on their fondness for each other’s company.
Damon and Affleck reunited for Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel and co-wrote the script alongside Nicole Holofcener; they played roles in the Affleck-helmed Air, they co-produced The Instigators, where Damon stars with Casey Affleck, and they’ll take the two leads in Netflix’s The Rip, directed by Joe Carnahan.
Unexpectedly, the impetus for the bromance to burst back into full gear came from The Beatles, with Damon living up to his billing as one-half of a legendary love story by confessing to Deadline that bawling his eyes out watching Peter Jackson’s Get Back instantly made him think of Affleck.
“These guys are playing live, and you can see the joy they’re playing with,” he explained. “They’re so excited, and then Peter Jackson puts up a chyron that says, ‘This is the last live performance that The Beatles ever gave. I was watching it with my youngest daughter, and she turned and looked at me. She said, ‘Dad, why are you crying?’ I had tears running down my face because of the missed opportunity that these four incredible musicians, who clearly loved each other, never got.”
Naturally, Affleck was the only thing on his mind, and Damon’s emotional response was the driving force behind the formation of their Artist Equity production company, which opened the door to their rapid-fire reunions. “I was like, ‘What are we doing, man?'” he continued. “Both of us, this is what we love to do more than anything. The only thing better is doing it together, in any capacity. How much life do we have left, and what are we going to do with it?”
Never mind the fact they’d been virtually inseperable since they were kids, it took Jackson’s Get Back to strike Damon with the realisation that if he and Affleck didn’t re-enter each other’s orbit soon, the opportunity could completely pass them by and leave them as a couple of elderly Bostonian men wondering what might have been had they bitten the bullet and re-upped their working relationship.
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