The movie that took Matt Damon to his lowest point: “I was so insulted”
Matt Damon is easy to underestimate. He might seem bland or generic to some, but that obscures the quiet genius behind his longevity. Sure, Hollywood loves a pleasant-looking white man, but it takes real skill to avoid any whiff of off-screen scandal for decades and still be seen as an A-list star after so many years. All of this nondescript competence can look incredibly easy from the outside, but like every other actor in the industry who started at the bottom and made their way to the very top, Damon has faced his fair share of hardship.
The usual biographical sketch of his career sidesteps that reality, though. Most people focus on how he grew up in Boston with Ben Affleck and how, in 1998, at the tender age of 27, he won an Oscar for co-writing Good Will Hunting with him. That narrative feels charmed, as if the young actor were supremely fortunate to gain success so quickly in an industry that is notoriously tough to break into. However, it is also misleading.
In truth, Damon had been trying to make it in Hollywood since the early ‘90s. He even dropped out of Harvard just before graduating to make an ill-fated Geronimo biopic with Gene Hackman. He floundered for several years, auditioning for and losing out on roles. But then he landed what he thought would be his big break: a young veteran suffering from an opiate addiction in the 1996 film Courage Under Fire.
Damon had every reason to believe that this could be his moment. The film starred Denzel Washington, after all, and Meg Ryan was playing a heroic helicopter pilot. What more could people ask for? Not much, apparently. Courage Under Fire was a rip-roaring success, winning with critics and audiences. Damon went all-out for his brief appearance, shedding 40 pounds to inhabit the emaciated frame of his character even though the role only required two days of shooting.
When praise for the film poured in but job offers did not, Damon was crushed. In a 1998 interview on The Charlie Rose Show, he said, “I thought that maybe I could get some attention, and then when I didn’t immediately, I was very crestfallen.” The part that hurt the most was that most reviews didn’t even mention his name. “I was so insulted because I had almost killed myself,” he said. “Because I was on medication for a couple of years because of the weight loss.”
It might have been the most devastating and physically harrowing moment of his career, but it turned out that his intuition had been right: someone did notice. In fact, two extremely important people noticed him – Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. Coppola approached him a year later to make The Rainmaker, which became his breakout role. While filming Good Will Hunting a year later, Damon’s co-star, Robin Williams, took him to meet Spielberg, who was in the process of casting Saving Private Ryan.
When Spielberg saw him, he said, “Wait a minute. Were you in Courage Under Fire? It was a wonderful performance.” Seeming confused, he added, “You were thin.” Seeing the young actor with an extra 40 pounds seemed to convince the Jurassic Park director that he had found his Private Ryan. One Oscar and a Spielberg classic later, Damon was one of the most celebrated stars in Hollywood.
