Today, it is hard to imagine ‘The Martian’ with anyone but Matt Damon as Mark Watney. After all, the 2015 sci-fi hit became one of the biggest successes of the year and a landmark film in Damon’s career.
But before the cameras even started rolling, Damon was ready to walk away from the project entirely. It took one meeting and one brutally honest piece of advice from director Ridley Scott to completely change his mind.
Matt Damon Wanted to Quit ‘The Martian’ Because of ‘Interstellar’
Speaking with Anne Hathaway in an interview for Harper’s Bazaar while promoting ‘The Odyssey‘, Matt Damon revealed that even before the shooting for ‘The Martian’ began, he met with director Ridley Scott intending to turn down the role.
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The reason was simple. Just months earlier, Damon had appeared in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ as Dr Mann, a NASA astronaut stranded alone on a frozen planet after the Lazarus mission. He worried audiences would see ‘The Martian’ as too familiar.
“I got so in my head.” Damon explained, “Well, I just played a guy stranded on a planet. I can’t then go play a guy stranded on a planet.”
Today, we can clearly see how different Dr Mann and Mark Watney’s stories are. Still, Damon’s concern was understandable at the time. Looking back, he laughed at how much he had overthought the situation, calling it a “classically, stupidly overthinking” decision.
Ridley Scott’s Blunt Advice Completely Changed Matt Damon’s Mind
Fortunately, Ridley Scott immediately recognised what Damon could not. Rather than trying to convince him with a long speech, the legendary director ended the discussion with one blunt piece of advice.
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After Damon explained that audiences might not want to see him play another stranded astronaut, Scott simply replied, “Oh, no one gives a s**t.”
The comment immediately snapped Damon out of his overthinking. Instead of focusing on surface-level similarities, he realized just how different the two films actually were.
“I was like, ‘All right, I’ll do it.’ And it was one of the great decisions I’ve made in my life because it was a great role with Ridley and I had a ball doing it,” Damon admitted.
How Ridley Scott’s Advice Stayed With Matt Damon For Years
During the same conversation, Anne Hathaway also shared a similar experience from the opposite perspective. She revealed that she once passed on a project because she believed it was too similar to something she had already done, but never met with the director to challenge that assumption.
“I have the inverse of that story. I did a thing, made the decision that it was too similar, didn’t meet with a director… I regret not having that moment to sit down and have my Ridley Scott be like, ‘No one gives a shit.'”
For actors, this kind of reassurance is clearly invaluable. Scott’s advice reminded Damon that audiences care far more about the story than superficial similarities between roles. As Damon put it, “That is a thing you learn getting older.”
Ultimately, we have Ridley Scott to thank for convincing Damon to take on one of the defining roles of his career. His blunt advice not only gave us ‘The Martian’, but also definitely influenced Damon’s performance in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’. Today, we can’t help but associate the actor with great stories about stranded heroes and their homecoming journey.
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