Matt Damon is one of the most successful and well-recognized actors in Hollywood. He has had some massively successful films like Good Will Hunting, the Bourne series, The Martian, The Departed, and most recently, his work is Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Damon has also been nominated for an Acadamy Award four times, with his film, Good Will Hunting winning for Best Screenplay.
Being such an exceptionally talented actor, one would expect Damon to be able to get any role he wanted. This, however, was not the case at the start of the actor’s career, having been rejected from the same role twice.
Matt Damon Auditioned For The Role Of Robin In Tim Burton’s Batman
Matt Damon revealed that Tim Burton’s Batman movie was originally supposed to feature their own version of Robin, Batman’s sidekick, and partner, a role that he had auditioned for. The actor went on to say that when this happened, he was around sixteen or seventeen in the year 1987. Damon explained when he read for this part, he had no idea what he was auditioning for.
“There are two stories there. There’s the Robin role, we went down to New York. 1987 maybe — ’87, ‘88. I would have been like 16 or 17. I remember that I didn’t have sides. It wasn’t like you were reading a scene with Batman. It was so secretive that you’re reading this other scene from some other movie. I never got the point of that.”
All he was told was that he was reading some part of a movie. While this is a comment practice in the industry for movies to keep characters, plotlines, and even entire movies secret, Damon wasn’t a big fan of this method. He mentioned that he did not understand it as it limited his capabilities as an actor, knowing very limited, likely false information about the character he is auditioning for.
Matt Damon Auditioned For The Role Of Robin Knowing He Would Not Get It
This wasn’t the only time that Matt Damon auditioned for the role of Robin in a Batman movie, as the actor ended up reading for the same character in 1993 for Val Kilmer Batman movie. This time, however, things were different as the production team had already had their eyes on Chris O’Donnell, who had already gotten the part.
“Chris O’Donnell already had the part, but they were haggling over money. The studio was flexing, basically, by flying in two other people to screen test. They wanted Chris, but they just wanted him for a price. I remember at that stage in my career, you would go in and read, even if you knew you weren’t going to get the part.” He said
The reason why the auditions for the role did not stop was because they wanted to negotiate with O’Donnell on how much he would be paid on the project. So, the team brought Damon, along with two other people for a screen test. Things worked for O’Donnell, however, as he ended up playing the character in the first film, as well as another remake, Batman & Robin.
Source: CinemaBlend
