Matt Damon was brutally smacked down by Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood while filming Invictus.
The Martian star was speaking on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast when he recalled director Eastwood abruptly telling him not to “waste everyone’s time,” as he tried to wrestle with a South African accent.
“I worked with him twice, and the first time was Invictus,” Damon said, referencing the 2009 movie about the South African rugby team after the end of Apartheid. “So I was playing a South African rugby player, and that’s a really tough accent to do.”
The Good Will Hunting lead said he had spent six months working with a dialect coach in Florida trying to get his accent up to scratch, but when his opportunity to use it came, he was hurried along by the Hollywood legend.
“It was a long… it was a lot of work,” Damon said. “And I showed up and, and I’m, I’m ready. It’s like my chance to work with, you know, one of my heroes.”
The Departed star continued, “The very first take, I did it. And meanwhile, I’ve done this so many thousands of times. I have a number of different ways that I’m thinking of maybe doing the scene. So he goes, ‘Cut, print, move on.’”
“I go, I go, ‘Hang on, hang on, hang on, boss. I want to, you know, I want to do another one. I mean, I wasn’t even in costume.’ You know, that was like, that was the first one,” Damon continued. “He goes, ‘Why you wanna waste everybody’s time?’”
Damon said it was done with “kindness,” explaining the logic, “His whole mentality was… your crew will go to the ends of the earth for you if as long as you’re not taxing them on every shot.”
