The movie that almost made Matt Damon quit acting: “It still bothers me to this day”
Trying to have a long and storied career is most likely the de facto dream of every actor who enters the hallowed streets of Hollywood. As the enter the studio plots for the first time, its impossible to assumed that the vast majority of performers aren’t wishing to see their name in lights, having their own star on the walk of fame and hoping for a career long enough and fruitful enough to mark an indelible mark on the history of cinema. That’s certainly something that appealed to Matt Damon as he began his career in the 1990s. But to achieve such a feat, you need to have guts.
Risk-taking is inherent to the filmmaking business, with artists sometimes putting everything on the line to bring a story to life and realise a thought that has lived in their head for many years. It could be Damien Chazelle and his early vision for La La Land after being inspired by the tragic love story of Umbrellas of Cherbourg, or Clint Eastwood and his continuous love for filmmaking that lasted well into the later years of his life.
While some studios opt for safe choices that they think will pull in more money, making films that make no attempt to do anything different or outside of the box, there are some who genuinely put their lives on the line to do so, channeling their most vulnerable experiences into a story to make something that will deeply resonate with others.
However, risk-taking does not always pay off, and there are some directors who make films that, for whatever reason, don’t land, something that was devastating to Matt Damon and the creators of one of his less successful projects from his filmography.
Damon is considered one of the lucky ones in a business that can chew you up and spit you out, with the actor rising to the top of the industry after starring and co-writing Good Will Hunting, winning an Oscar at just the age of 27. The picture is regarded as one of the defining moments of cinema for the 1990s and earmarked both Damon and his co-writer Ben Affleck as stars for the future. While they may never have dreamed of the longevity the two men would achieve, the movie set them on a good course for making it happen.
From that point onwards, Dmaon’s career went from strength to strength, working with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan and Steven Soderbergh on some of the most globally successful films of all time. As a result, he is considered a box office success and a simultaneous indie darling, continuing to champion smaller projects along the way.
But while he has seen the heights of success, he has also been met with crushing lows, something that he described after starring in Billy Bob Thornton’s film All The Pretty Horses, which was met with harsh treatment and left the entire crew struggling with the disappointment of putting their all into something that wasn’t seen as successful.
When discussing this, Damon said, “Everybody who worked on All the Pretty Horses took so much time and cared so much. As you know, the Cormac McCarthy book is set in 1949 and is about a guy trying to hold on to his old way of life. The electric guitar became popular in 1949, and the composer Daniel Lanois got an old 1949 guitar and wrote this spare, haunting score. We did the movie listening to his score. It informed everything we did. We made this very dark, spare movie, but the studio wanted an epic with big emotions and violins”.
This disconnect between the creators behind the picture and the studio funding it is a tale as old as Hollywood itself. There have been countless projects that have never seen the light of day because the studio wanted to save face commercially. All the Pretty Horses was one movie that will remain a dark moment for Damon’s career.
Despite their obvious enthusiasm, the film was practically buried by the studio, with Damon continuing, “They saw the cast, the director, Billy Bob Thornton, and the fact that we spent $50million, and they never released our movie—though the cut still exists. Billy had a heart problem at that time, and it was because his heart fucking broke from fighting for that film. It really fucked him up. It still bothers me to this day”.
There are some films that break our hearts, but this one was heartbreaking due to the sole effort that was channelled into it and the harsh reality that their work wasn’t matched by an equally strong reaction, which can sometimes be the toughest blow. While it is impossible for us to have too strong an opinion on a picture that was never released the trailer does offer a slight view on why the studio might have seen fit to shelve the project.
