The director who fulfilled Matt Damon’s lifelong dream: “It’s the call that every actor wants”
Matt Damon has enjoyed a career that most actors can only dream of. He’s as beloved by the public as he is cherished by awards committees, starring in major blockbusters like the ‘Bourne’ and ‘Ocean’s’ series as regularly as Oscar contenders like Good Will Hunting and Oppenheimer. He’s shared the screen with some of the greats and, behind the curtain, has worked with the greatest directors of his time.
Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Steven Soderbergh, Martin Scorsese, Damon have plied their trade for them all, sometimes more than once. Another multi-time collaborator with Team America’s favourite actor is Clint Eastwood, who directed Damon first in the sports drama Invictus and then again in the 2010 fantasy disaster flick Hereafter.
While promoting the latter of the two, its star sat down with Female to talk about what it was like sharing a set with the legendary actor-turned-filmmaker. “It’s just the call that every actor wants,” Damon admitted. “He’s such a terrific person to work for. He creates the best environment for everybody to work in. He just knows so much about filmmaking and he really knows, I mean I assume, he can do everybody’s job on the set as well or better than they can. Yet he doesn’t try to control everything in an iron fisted way.”
Hereafter was written by Peter Morgan, who also penned the screenplays for Frost/Nixon and The Last King of Scotland, alongside serving as showrunner for the Netflix series The Crown. Damon plays George, a famous psychic who has grown tired of his ability to contact the dead and wants to sever his connection to the afterlife. The film plays out in the form of three separate stories about those who experience it and also features performances from Cécile de France, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Derek Jacobi.
“He’s very confident, and so what he tries to do is create an atmosphere where people can innovate a little on their own and come up with ideas and be creative, and he ultimately is the arbiter of taste,” Damon continued in his praise for Eastwood. “So if someone comes up with something, if he likes it he’ll use it and if not he won’t. As a result he really gets the best out of everybody around him. It’s a very permissive environment in which people feel like their work is respected. Ultimately, it’s Clint, so every person on the set feels pretty privileged to be there. You know you’re on the mountaintop when you’re working with him.”
Eastwood made the transition to directing with 1971’s Play Misty For Me. His most famous contributions from behind the camera include The Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River, and American Sniper. He’s also a two-time ‘Best Director’ winner at the Oscars, scooping the prize in 1993 for Unforgiven and then again in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby. Even as recently as 2024, at the age of 94, he was putting out Juror No. 2, rumoured to be his final film.
That an actor of the calibre of Matt Damon would feel honoured to work with Clint Eastwood speaks volumes about the star power he exudes. For over six decades, he has been one of the most revered and recognisable faces in Hollywood, both on-and off-screen, and he has built a legacy that will surely live on for many more years to come.
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