Before ‘Good Will Hunting‘ (1997) made them Academy Award-winning stars, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were just two struggling actors chasing every audition they could find. At the time, their screenplay for the movie was nothing more than a college assignment that had earned praise from one of Damon’s professors.
Neither of the duo realized it had the potential to change their lives. But after being rejected for one of the biggest films of the 1990s, Damon and Affleck finally found the courage to push through and finish the screenplay that ultimately launched their careers.
Failed ‘Primal Fear’ Audition Encouraged Matt Damon And Ben Affleck
During a recent interview with Complex that also featured Tom Holland, the conversation turned to the greatest action movies of all time. When Holland revealed that ‘Primal Fear’ was one of his favorites, Damon explained just how important the film was to his own career.
Related: Is ‘Good Will Hunting’ Based On A True Story? What Happened To The Real Genius?
At the time, the role that eventually went to Edward Norton was available through an open audition. This gave relatively unknown actors a rare chance to compete for a major Hollywood role. “It was a great, great, great role,” Damon recalled.
“I couldn’t believe that it made its way down to the masses.” Both Damon and Affleck auditioned for the part, but neither got it. As disappointing as the rejection was, it led the friends to an important realization.
“[We] looked at each other, and we were like, ‘There’s never gonna be a role that good that comes down into the category of unknown actor, and we all can take a shot at it,'” Damon said. They realized they couldn’t keep waiting for an opportunity like that to come around again.
And even if it did, there would still be “10,000 people going for this one thing.” Instead of waiting for their big break, they decided to create one themselves. “We really buckled down and wrote ‘Good Will Hunting’ a little more desperately,” Damon said. That desperation ultimately produced the screenplay that changed their lives.
How ‘Good Will Hunting’ Came Out Of Necessity
Looking back, Damon revealed that ‘Good Will Hunting’ was never part of some grand career plan. It was simply born out of necessity. They weren’t aiming to become overnight sensations. It was just an attempt to stay in the acting industry.
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“It’s very, very hard, as you know, to break in,” Damon told Holland. “The hardest jobs to get are the first ones you get.” Losing ‘Primal Fear’ motivated the pair to pour all of their energy into ‘Good Will Hunting,’ which also starred the iconic Robin Williams.
The screenplay had originally begun as a project for one of Damon’s college classes, but he knew there was something special about it after receiving an A on the assignment.
“Because of this professor’s reaction, I had enough confidence to show it to my friend, and I said, ‘I don’t know what to do, I’m stuck with this,'” Damon recalled during a 2023 Vanity Fair interview alongside Affleck.
Affleck immediately saw the potential for something special. “And Ben read it, and he said, ‘I don’t know what to do either, but we should do it together.’ And that was it,” the ‘Air’ actor said. It was a gamble that they both decided to take together.
That desperation and necessity to stay in the industry led their gamble to pay off spectacularly. Though they lost ‘Primal Fear,’ they went from struggling actors to Academy Award-winning sensations with their own project just a year later.
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