“We were worth nothing!”: Matt Damon Revealed Casting Robin Williams in His Oscar-Winning Film Was Based on Purely Selfish Motives
After all these years, it’s no longer a secret that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck rose to fame with the 1997 psychological drama Good Will Hunting. What had started out as the final assignment for the playwriting class Damon took at Harvard University became a full-fledged script which he developed with his best friend Ben Affleck.
Getting a breakthrough role in a Hollywood movie can be the most difficult part of being an actor. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck chose to do it the other way around. Instead of looking for roles that would suit them well, they made a genius move by writing characters for themselves in the script they wrote. However, they still needed funding and once again used a smart tactic to get it.
Matt Damon Revealed How They Got Funds for The Movie
Both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were just starting out in Hollywood when they starred in Good Will Hunting, this movie did not only give them a break but also catapulted them to the spotlight. When the movie was nothing more than a well-written script, investing money in the two best friends would be a gamble so the Oppenheimer actor came up with a brilliant idea that would get them funds.
Damon and Affleck specifically wrote a role for a star actor that would get them the money they needed. This idea came along when they heard that Quentin Tarantino’s first movie Reservoir Dogs got half a million-dollar budget because of a role that Harvey Keitel had signed. Damon explained:
“We wrote that part, that Robin [Williams] eventually took, we called it the Harvey Keitel part. Looking for an actor who could get us some money because Ben [Affleck] and I wanted to star in that movie, and we knew we were worth nothing, so we needed to get somebody.”
Robin Williams was mostly known for his comedic roles. However, his skills were not confined to doing comedy alone as he was one of the best actors of his generation. The charisma that he brought along with him to his characters was sure to appeal to the audience as soon as he appeared on the screen.
Robin Williams Improvised an Important Line
In Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams played the role of a widower psychology professor Sean Maguire who was a therapist to Matt Damon’s Will Hunting. William’s nuanced and sincere character proved to be a driving factor for the movie. The Jason Bourne star recalled how Williams improvised the last line of the movie which was his response to Will Hunting’s farewell letter to him.
Sean Maguire was supposed to just sit and take in the moment but instead of doing that Williams said, “Son of a bi**h, he stole my line.” Damon was so ecstatic to realize how brilliant the Dead Poets Society actor had made the moment that he grabbed the director Gus Van Sant and started shaking him. The Good Shepherd actor said that he truly appreciates Robin Williams for what he did in Good Will Hunting.
Source: GQ
